b'A Mom for All SeasonsNovelist Eliza Minot celebratesthe magnificent act of motheringBY TIA SWANSONnots life work. With her husband, Ericchildren. I dont even know what as-Price, she has raised four children inpect (of motherhood) I was trying not Maplewood, the youngest of whom isto forget, but I did want to remember.now a junior at Columbia. She is also,Although she did not set out to pen however, a well-regarded novelist. Thisa feminist manifesto, she did want to spring, she was given the Maplewoodwrite a book that only a woman, and LiteraryAwardaspartofthetown- a mother, could. In addition to every-E liza Minot sits in the corner of Elitist Coffee in South Or- ships Ideas Festival. And all her novelsthing else, she says, Its also a shout out in one way or another are at least par- to the moms. Theres a lot of mystery tially about mothers and motherhood.and poetry (in mothering) that doesnt The latestIn the Orchard, which wasreally get applauded.ange, surveying the view its second story perch allows. ShereleasedApril25revolvesaroundLike other noted novelists who focus blends seamlessly in with the crowd of mothers, gig workerstheruminationsofasleep-deprivedon a single day and a single life, Minots and artsy types that frequent the caf mid-weekday-morn- mother of four young children duringnarrative suggests that there is nothing ing, dressed casually and unobtrusively but for a bright or- a single day when the baby is but twoso noble as a considered life and, in this ange stocking cap. On another head and in another placeweeks old.case, nothing so meaningful as raising this headgear might signify a hunter; here it is either a sin- In prose both profound and poetic,another human being (or four).gular nod to fashion or, more likely, grabbed from the family coat hooks onshe manages to record and relate all thoseIt is not the novel she originally in-the way out the door as a last-second attempt to ward off the cold of a latesmall moments of motherhood that passtended to write.February day. unremarked and unremembered.The seeds of the novel date to 2008, Down below a woman holds the hand of a small child; the woman seemsAnyonewhohasraisedachildisand the early days of the financial crisis, too old to be the mother; a caregiver, a grandmother, perhaps? The childlikely to read the book with tinges ofwhen Minot opened the newspaper to drops something. The woman bends to pick it up. wonder and regret. How fast that timesee a headline about the rise in defaults Every single person, Minot says, has a mother.goes! How difficult it is to recall theamong young families and homeown-She is quick to note that she is not necessarily talking about a womandetails! How is Minot able not only toers. She quickly wrote 70 pages about who gives birth to a child; she is referring, instead, to the peopleno matterremember but to find the time to writea family struggling under home equity their gender or blood connectionwho take it upon themselves to raise ait all down? debt.child, with all the love, monotony, worry and work it entails: the one who,She says one of the motivations ofAndshequicklysoldthemanu-in Minots words, is paying attention like that. thebookwastorecallthoseheady,script,too,althoughamidthegreat It seems fair to say that motherhood, and the contemplation of it, is Mi- busy days of being a woman with smallrecession she earned less than what she 12/ matters magazine / spring 2023'