Winner of the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. Foreign rights to A Double Life have been sold in Taiwan, Italy, and Brazil.
About the book
There is no denying it: motherhood splits a woman’s life forever, into a before and an after. To this doubled life Lisa Catherine Harper brings a wealth of feeling and a wry sense of humor, a will to understand the emotional and biological transformations that motherhood entails, and a narrative gift that any reader will enjoy. Harper documents her own journey across this great divide as a seasoned explorer might, observing, researching, relating anecdotes and critical information. From late-night Lindy Hop dancing to crippling sciatica, morning sickness to indulgent meals, graduate seminars to sophisticated ultrasounds, Harper marries scientific details with intimate insights as she uncovers the fascinating strangeness of this remarkably familiar territory.
Following Harper’s first pregnancy from conception to her daughter’s first word, A Double Life looks at how the biological facts of motherhood give rise to life-altering emotional and psychological changes. It shows us how motherhood transforms the female body, hijacks a woman’s mind, and splits her life in two, creating an identity both brand new and as old as time. It charts the passage from individual to incubator, from pregnancy, labor, and nursing to language acquisition, from coupledom to the complex reality of family life. Harper’s carefully researched story reminds us that motherhood’s central joys are also its most essential transformations.
“For a lot of new fathers, there are two deep and inextricable mysteries: (1) All the confusing stuff that happens to your wife when she becomes a mother, and (2) All the boring books about stuff that happens to your wife when she becomes a mother. From this standpoint Lisa Catherine Harper’s funny, honest, literate, and eye-opening memoir A DOUBLE LIFE is an absolute godsend. It tells the truth about motherhood, it does so in a lively and thoughtful way, and it never slips into the mommy-wars rhetoric that seems lately to have worn out its welcome. So if you’re looking for a new book about parenting that won’t make you look like a dork on the commuter train, let me help: This is the cool one.”
–Jeff Gordinier, author of X Saves the World and Editor-at-Large of Details magazine
“In A DOUBLE LIFE, Lisa Catherine Harper delivers a complex, heartfelt exploration of pregnancy and motherhood. Smart, accessible, and emotionally compelling, it is part memoir, part manifesto—a riveting read for anyone who is a mother, or hopes to become one.”
–Michelle Richmond, author of The Year of Fog and No One You Know
You can read more reviews here.
Buy A Double Life from University of Nebraska Press, Indie Bound, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.
