- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (29 April 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743432967
- ISBN-13: 978-0743432962
- Product Dimensions: 22.3 x 15 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,997,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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"Writing so fiercely beautiful the pages seem to tremble with the weight of their words. A Better Woman will entirely possess you as you read."
Product Description
"If I had known...what giving birth was to cost me,
would I have dared to fall pregnant?
Yes, yes. A thousand times, yes.
"
Accalaimed novelist Susan Johnson found, at age thirty-five, that her arms began to feel "empty." Soon her desire to have a baby became overwhelming. She had no inkling then what motherhood would cost her -- or give her. But as she went on to experience pregnancy and birth, and their impact on her marriage, her health, and her heart, she recorded it all in a black-and-red notebook. Here, Susan Johnson takes that raw, potentially wrenching material and creates an inspirational work of autobiography.
In a hauntingly lovely account, Johnson portrays a woman transformed by motherhood, and a writer forever changed by a widening chasm of experience. Simple acts such as getting her newborn to breastfeed prove unexpectedly difficult. The husband she adores becomes a sparring partner, their newly purchased home a disaster, her time to write nonexistent. Then, just when she believes she may be getting her life together, she becomes pregnant again.
Soon ecstasy jostles against bewilderment, rage, and despair when she develops a rare complication of childbirth. Facing major surgery, Susan calls herself "a one-woman catastrophe, a small ruined country." She is also going to bed at night planning what she will write in the morning, burning to get words on paper.
The mesmerizing narrative she created is "A Better Woman," a chronicle of love and courage, by turns poetic and searingly graphic. It should be required reading for every woman hungry to give birth -- and every mother yearning to have her deepest feeling heard.
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The year that I turned thirty-five, my arms began to feel empty. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
The year that I turned thirty-five, my arms began to feel empty. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first heard of this book after listening to the Author in a Radio 4 interview on womans hour. I'd just dropped my son off at Nursery, spent an hour trying to settle him, eventually leaving him and myself tearful and unhappy. He hated it. I hated it. I sat attempting to compose myself for the drive home, and tuning in the radio I heard Susan Johnson end the programme by reading this piece...... "I am warning you that after the birth of your baby , your laughter and rage and pain will be fuller, deeper, harder. You will suddenly see that the world is full of children, and there will be heartbreaking moments when you feel the full weight of each childs life as heavily as your own precious child's." After hearing such truth, the floodgates opened and it was a full 45 minutes before I could see clearly enough to drive home again. How could I not then purchase this book. After reading it, I decided it was not at all what I had expected, it was incredibly raw and disturbing. This lady suffered the most moving and undignified complications after the birth of her sons. There are no holds barred as she recounts in explicit detail the humiliating changes to her body after developing a fistula, and how it effected her relationships. I found it heartbreaking and touching and a definate 'must read'. The awfullness of her story was made more poignant for me as she went on to say "If I had known then what giving birth was to cost me, would I have dared to fall pregnant? Yes, yes. A thousand times, yes" Clearly, throughout the telling of her troubles it is understood that our children are our brightest blessings, and I agree with her sentiment with all my heart. You have to read this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
A Conversation
18 July 2011
Format:Paperback
Susan Johnson shares her childbirth experiences and the unexpected complications she endured afterwards. This book is also the stoy of a single writer adjusting to being a married woman with two babies and an illness, who is still a writer-- but a different person. "A Better Woman," as the title says. In the first pages of the Forward, Johnson talks about how she went from feeling in control of her body to the horror of needing a colostomy. I read this and thought, I'll skip the really graphic medical stuff and wondered if I really wanted to continue reading.
I continued and I was glad I did. Johnson's voice is self-reflective, acknowledging the memoirist's dilemma of always selecting what to write and what to leave out. She's opinionated and detailed. Although she questions her openness, I found her writing candid and heartbreaking. Johnson is changed by motherhood and her medical ordeals. Reading this book felt like a friend sharing the details of her day to day life. Her writing is elegant and spare. At times she stops her narrative and addresses the reader directly:
"Perhaps by now, all these years later, you might have even found that book of my personal way washed up on some remainder table or library shelf. Inside its pages you may be able to detect tears, the scent of milk, a baby's howling. You may feel the flame of my life race up your fingers and know a little of what it feels like to feel burned.
"For in its pages my actual waking life smolders still, giving off the kind of smoke which always lingers in the wake of an incendiary blaze.
"Reader can you smell it? Can you?"
I continued and I was glad I did. Johnson's voice is self-reflective, acknowledging the memoirist's dilemma of always selecting what to write and what to leave out. She's opinionated and detailed. Although she questions her openness, I found her writing candid and heartbreaking. Johnson is changed by motherhood and her medical ordeals. Reading this book felt like a friend sharing the details of her day to day life. Her writing is elegant and spare. At times she stops her narrative and addresses the reader directly:
"Perhaps by now, all these years later, you might have even found that book of my personal way washed up on some remainder table or library shelf. Inside its pages you may be able to detect tears, the scent of milk, a baby's howling. You may feel the flame of my life race up your fingers and know a little of what it feels like to feel burned.
"For in its pages my actual waking life smolders still, giving off the kind of smoke which always lingers in the wake of an incendiary blaze.
"Reader can you smell it? Can you?"
Poetic truth-telling about motherhood
5 May 2009
Format:Hardcover
Reading Susan Johnson's lyrically written account of the unexpected maternal wave that swept over her in the middle of her autonomous writer's life, I was brought straight back to the shock and power of my own early motherhood. Although I never suffered the physical disabilities Johnson describes, I understood perfectly the dual nature of love and drowning that Johnson experiences. There are so many hidden aspects of womanhood - so many unofficial stories. That mix of passion and powerlessness, that learning to relinquish control and the mourning of it, are universal experiences that are not often addressed and should be. If you want to read a very beautifullly written account of a real woman's experience of motherhood written by a powerful writer, this is the book.
It gets better at the halfway point
7 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback
At the age of 35, Susan Johnson realizes that she desperately wants to be a mother. At 38 she is pregnant with her first child, moving back her to homeland of Australia, and getting ready to "settle." Although deliriously happy with her new baby and new life, she realizes that something isn't quite right and is soon diagnosed with a recto-vaginal fistula, something that is practically unheard of in the Western world (although prevalent in developing countries). This memoir is Susan's story--about life as a new, first-time, older mother. Settling down with a man who isn't really the settling down type. Attempting to remain a surviving writer. And dealing with a rare medical condition that can be painful, not to mention embarrassing and humiliating.
I really did not enjoy the book at first. It wasn't until about halfway through that I really started to not only get into the book, but really even cared about her story. She doesn't really talk about the fistula until the midway point, and I guess I was just waiting for that. It's probably also important to mention that I am not really a fan of "literary memoirs" (as my sister says: it's probably really great. I did not think the first half was great). I prefer the more gritty, real writing to the pretentious, flowery writing that she has. Looking back, I can see that the first half of the book was probably fine; it just didn't really have anything to do with the reason I picked up the book in the first place. One thing I loved, though; is that Johnson has some wonderful phrases that are immensely quotable. Example: "Having children exposes you. I will know who you are when I see how you wish your children to live." And "Isn't it a form of arrogance to assume that misfortune will not personally visit you, or to allow yourself to believe the man who says his love for you is endless as space?" I really liked that she got into a bit of feminist theory and quoted/discussed Germaine Greer. I also thought she had a wonderful observation on the recent prominence of what she describes as the "earth-mother hierarchy"--where the focus on getting back to natural childbirth, home births and midwives forgets that "birth involves danger." Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot. And when I forget about the first half, I love it.
I really did not enjoy the book at first. It wasn't until about halfway through that I really started to not only get into the book, but really even cared about her story. She doesn't really talk about the fistula until the midway point, and I guess I was just waiting for that. It's probably also important to mention that I am not really a fan of "literary memoirs" (as my sister says: it's probably really great. I did not think the first half was great). I prefer the more gritty, real writing to the pretentious, flowery writing that she has. Looking back, I can see that the first half of the book was probably fine; it just didn't really have anything to do with the reason I picked up the book in the first place. One thing I loved, though; is that Johnson has some wonderful phrases that are immensely quotable. Example: "Having children exposes you. I will know who you are when I see how you wish your children to live." And "Isn't it a form of arrogance to assume that misfortune will not personally visit you, or to allow yourself to believe the man who says his love for you is endless as space?" I really liked that she got into a bit of feminist theory and quoted/discussed Germaine Greer. I also thought she had a wonderful observation on the recent prominence of what she describes as the "earth-mother hierarchy"--where the focus on getting back to natural childbirth, home births and midwives forgets that "birth involves danger." Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot. And when I forget about the first half, I love it.
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