Adult Conversation

An overwhelmed mother seeks help from an equally overwhelmed therapist in Ferner's debut novel. Motherhood is driving April Stewart crazy. Between her 8-year-old, Elliot, and her toddler, Violet, April feels that she has no space for herself in her own life--she can't even find time to go to the bathroom. The stay-at-home mom gets little help from her husband, Aaron, a packaging designer for a specialty grocery store: "Something I couldn't shake, but never knew how to accurately verbalize to Aaron, was my quiet resentment about his daily life having changed very little since we had the kids, whereas mine was now unrecognizable. Parenthood had exacted something from me that it hadn't exacted from him--not even close." When she finally can't take it anymore, she decides to consult a therapist. June is a "flawless blonde" whose put-togetherness at first exacerbates all of April's anxieties, but the two soon hit it off. At June's encouragement, April even gets back into designing clothes and finding a boutique to carry them. As June becomes further entwined in her life, however, April notices cracks beneath the surface. When June asks April to come with her to Las Vegas to spy on her cheating husband, April realizes that the "Mom Code"--the "law of helpfulness that moms follow when one of our sisters is in distress"--may be too powerful to overcome. As narrator, April tackles motherhood with unflinching (and often profane) humor: "The flock of women looked up from the table of bags, aghast. They didn't know that this wasn't my first time being slapped in the face, in public, by a toddler." The great specificity with which Ferner writes about child-rearing--and the real but complex resentment she reveals in April's marriage--helps set this book apart in the field of comic women's fiction. The plot is a little meandering, and the reader eventually becomes as frustrated with Elliot and Violet as April already is, but the characters are so well constructed and April's voice is so compelling that the novel has no difficulty pulling the reader through its pages. Ferner will likely have many fans awaiting her next irreverent volume. A clever and often caustic sendup of modern motherhood.

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