The Mother

“This is a truly beautiful and special book.”—Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet

“Searching, honest, funny, and beautiful.” —Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch

“I laugh-sobbed my way through The Mother, so loudly my children came to check on me.” —Angela Garbes, author of Essential Labor and Like a Mother

In this hilarious and harrowingly honest graphic memoir, New Yorker cartoonist Rachel Deutsch, aka @weirdmomart on Instagram, shares the story of her journey into motherhood. 

Rachel Deutsch had always wanted a baby. She wanted to press her face into theirs and feed them from her body. Eventually her child might hate her a little. But they’d be on speaking terms most of the time. Wait…or was that just Rachel’s experience with her mom? Had she processed her own childhood enough to raise a child herself!?

The Mother is about the constant dualities and contradictions of motherhood. The collision of future Rachel and past Rachel. Desperately wanting to get pregnant while fearful of being pregnant. Loving a new identity while missing an old one. Celebrating a new family while mourning the previous incarnation of a partnership.

Funny, provocative, and unabashedly candid, Deutsch’s memoir embraces both the joys and the challenges of modern parenthood in a way that will resonate with new and seasoned parents.