Things That Helped

'Things That Helped is a beautiful book - heartfelt, fiercely intelligent, and urgent. It is a powerful affirmation of friendship, family, art, and love, and how these things might shape a life, and give it strength, and it does not shy away from the complex, often painful, and sometimes bloody experiences of womanhood and motherhood. It is fascinating, luscious, and engrossing, and, despite its difficult subject matter, an absolute joy to read.' -Fiona Wright, author of Small Acts of Disappearance '[A]n impressive debut ... Friedmann views the world through a lens of intersectionality, and she has a sharp eye for how gender, race, and class shapes the family unit ... Her language is deeply visceral, and therefore hugely affecting, when describing the feeling of pregnancy, motherhood, and mental illness ... [Things That Helped] makes readers feel and think.' - Books&Publishing 'Jessica Friedmann has left safety behind and walked into something vast - a self, a world, on the verge of unravelling yet exhilarating and full of love. This book runs deep and wide. It's alive with arresting images, with thoughts too big, sometimes too dangerous, to pin down.' -Maria Tumarkin 'Friedmann has written a brutally insightful and often heartbreaking study of the complexities of womanhood. Her transportive writing will break you open and fill you anew.' -Anna Spargo-Ryan, author of The Paper House