REVIEWS
The mixed-up matter of maternal instinct
Still Born is a novel that reckons with the many complications of motherhood with extraordinary grace. In limpid prose, Guadalupe Nettel, as translated by Rosalind Harvey, offers various epiphanies about becoming a parent. “We have the children that we have, not the ones we imagined we’d have, or the ones we’d have liked,” is one crucial statement voiced by the narrator, Laura, a PhD student in her mid-thirties, who speaks with an almost omniscient clarity.
Her main observations involve the trials experienced by her friend, Alina, a curator, who is desperate to have a baby. Originally, Laura feels betrayed when Alina announces this desire. They have, after all, spent years bonding over their mutual desire to be childless. Laura has recently been sterilised…
