Review by New York Times Review
FOR SEVERAL YEARS I was a professor of creative writing at an English university, and a native habit of finding metaphors and similes in unlikely places occasionally led me to glimpse a strange half-analogy between the writing student and the woman embarking on in vitro fertilization. My students wanted to be writers - that is, to write and to have their writing published - but this had not, or not yet, happened to them of its own accord. Some of them had been longer in pursuit of that goal than others, and for these more thwarted individuals I sometimes felt fear - that they would spend all their money and time on what would in the end prove a fruitless ambition, and more, that they had started to idealize "being a writer," to detach it from what writing really was or ever could be. I believed I could enable them to write, but in the matter of publication - though I could improve their chances - I had no power. I treated teaching as more or less an honor, for I learned many things from it I might otherwise not have known, the most important of which seems to me now the lesson in objectivity that comes from watching another person confront the stubbornness of destiny. Like the I.V.F. industry, the creative writing business has many critics who deplore the notion that creativity can or should be taught and believe some central mystery of life is being violated therein. No one likes to think of himself as peddling false hope in exchange for cash; but the criticism seemed to be aimed at the student too. Part of the humiliation of being helped to bring forth what should emerge naturally (or, by implication, not at all) is the speed with which the most generous impulse - to create - begins to look like the most selfish. To be a writer, to be a mother: The more these desires are separated from their object (to be the writer of what, to be the mother of whom?), the more they seem to represent not the reaching out of creativity but the inward obstinacy of personal will "It never occurred to me that I couldn't have children" is a statement that crops up frequently in the literature of I.V.F. A definition of subjectivity might be the failure to see what was given, and to understand thereby the meaning of what was not. The wisdom of experience is perhaps a wisdom of givens; but how can a parent - for whom the business of having children represents an accumulation of experience so colossal that it's almost impossible to imagine what her world would have looked like without it - understand someone locked in the moment where the original impulse to have a child occurred, a moment that to them has become almost irrelevant? All parents know is that in that moment, they knew nothing at all. Like so many other assumptions, the "given" of fertility - however hazily considered - maintains a woman's sense of agency in her own life. One problem with the discourse of infertility is that it has at its core a nonevent. How can a woman talk about or learn from what hasn't happened to her? The advent of I.V.F. has brought more than new technologies and hope to that expressive impasse: It has made infertility experiential, an active state with its own narrative, its own sufferings and hence - one anticipates - its own wisdom. The analogy between creative writing and fertility is not entirely facile: The story of I.V.F. is essentially a female story, and it requires women writers to tell it. Through literary history the woman writer has squared off in various ways against her old adversary, motherhood. On a broad survey, childlessness has been the better guarantor of a female artistic vision reaching fulfillment. Those women who have done both, and written truthfully about it, continue to offer the succor of recognition to their female readers. The woman writing about the travails of assisted reproduction, on the other hand, is in a somewhat curious position: She has seized the opportunity to document a new chapter in female experience, but at the same time she is in a sense putting into reverse the evolving contemporary discourse around motherhood. This woman doesn't - can't - fear what having a child will mean for her hard-won social and intellectual autonomy; she isn't concerned with the right to express ambivalence toward this oldest and strongest of binds - indeed, she perhaps views maternal ambivalence as a somewhat grotesque luxury. No, this woman is unambivalent: She wants desperately, blindly, to become a mother, and while I.V.F. certainly offers some hope that her desire might be fulfilled, it can also feed that desire, feed it until it is rendered all-consuming and capable of exacting every mental, physical and financial cost. "THE TRUTH," JULIA LEIGH WRITES early on in "Avalanche," "was that many women had gone before me and found ways to lead a creative life and also be a mother. There were countless prams in countless hallways. It wasn't ?rocket science.' It wasn't either/or. There was enough space." Writing has been a "given" for Leigh, a novelist and screenwriter of international standing. So it is surprising to hear her dismiss in a couple of lines - replete, what's more, with clichés - the honorable testimony of female literary history regarding what very much is the rocket science of combining artistic endeavor with family life. Her tone reminds me of the recent blitheness of the Brexiteers, assuring they would "find a way" to make British independence work, despite the evidence to the contrary supplied by people who knew what they were talking about. If this is "the truth," it certainly isn't of an inconvenient kind: Women writers, of course, survive motherhood - whether badly or well - just as everyone else does, and in a different world Julia Leigh might have used her great gifts to illuminate for us something of what that survival actually entails. As it is, she is on a different journey, but like a climber heading into the mountains without the right equipment, this failure to interrogate "the truth" at the outset causes the reader to fear for her safety. And indeed, "Avalanche" is a harrowing and profoundly disturbing account of self-immolation in pursuit of an ideal, for what Leigh has failed to recognize about "creative life" is that it too seeks to concretize the ineffable, and that it arises in people of a single-mindedness and determination so strong it can destroy them. "The child, the child. The child was there ... nestled in among words of fear and hope and promise. Our child. Our beautiful child, our destined child was called forth as a possibility, conjured out of the ether." At 38, Leigh re-encounters and marries an old love from her student years: They have the good fortune to be impassioned lovers and soul mates, new to each other yet known, and the decision to have a child is quickly made. But Leigh then changes her mind; she wants to wait a year, "to be sure our relationship was truly solid. ... One of my inner eels had slipped loose, an eel that took the guise of reasonable caution but which really was a small wriggling mistrust." This first act of what might be called authorship - the impulse to shape and control the story - might seem insignificant, but Leigh is correct to identify the role self-will played from the very beginning in the events she describes. What she knows as the writer's task - to build something that resembles reality yet is entirely the product of choice - becomes, when transferred to human actuality, a flawed and terrifying omnipotence. Or impotence: When Leigh and her husband finally embark on the arduous yearslong journey of assisted conception - which begins steeply, in their case, with the attempted reversal of his vasectomy - they find that the book of life is not so easily written. Events disobey them; the story won't move forward; indeed, the principles of creativity are almost entirely reversed. What is being created is a negative space, a void, into which everything of value - love, affinity, trust, cash - inexorably disappears. Language becomes a jumble of statistics and awkward medical vocabulary. Sex itself, in the bitterest of ironies, begins to fail, "so colored by the desire for a child, as if that were now its sole purpose." Who is to blame? If one were not interested in the question of accountability, it would be simple merely to say that I.V.F. didn't work for Leigh and her husband. But what is most distressing about "Avalanche" is also what makes it important: It is the work of a palpably weakened author, a testimony of personal suffering whose legitimacy - on this telling - seems to have gone outrageously unquestioned. Leigh's marriage reaches the breaking point in the most subtly brutal of ways: A film script she has written goes into production. A writer's dream, a mother's nightmare. She tells her husband she wants to stop trying to conceive while the film is being made. The production is a great success, but when the time comes to resume fertility treatment, her husband expresses serious doubts about her ability to commit herself to a family. The night before they are due at the clinic, they stay up late talking about it, "but I was bone-tired and soon begged off to sleep. When I woke up, Paul told me he was canceling the cycle. He said that if we'd been talking about my work in the early hours of the morning, I would have managed to stay awake." This harsh, brief scene represents the core tragedy of "Avalanche." It's more than being forced to choose between what one doesn't have (a child) and what one does (a significant career opportunity); it's in fact a different version of that same "rocket science" Leigh waved away so blithely at the beginning of her tale, the head-on collision of motherhood with work. Any working mother will have experienced this and know it isn't always or automatically one's maternal obligations that take priority. Most women will probably feel a degree of guilt and anxiety and remorse over certain decisions they made, but for someone in Leigh's position the cost is dizzyingly, incalculably high, the possibilities for self-forgiveness narrow. It is after the sad breakdown of her mar- riage that Leigh's story moves definitively into the shadowlands, for having parted from her husband, she decides to continue alone in her quest for a child. What follows is a story of emotional, physical and financial disintegration so agonizing that one almost wants to shield one's eyes from the page. The writing falters, overwhelmed by numbers, data, Kafkaesque interpretations of statistics, invasive medical procedures undergone in a fever of superstition or increasingly untenable hope. On her 44th birthday, Leigh leaves the clinic after a blood test and sees a little girl walking with her grandfather along the street. "I felt a flush of heartwarmth at the sight of that little girl. Could she be enough for me? Did I need to place my own child at the center of the world? Was it enough that other beautiful children existed? If I could make the revolutionary shift from I to We, from J to This, perhaps that would be possible." Another year and more failed procedures later, she asks her doctor whether she should stop trying. She is nearly 45 years old; she has been trying to conceive through I.V.E since she was 38 and has never in all that time come even close to a successful result. "My health was a ruin. I was totally worn down, worn out. My skin was bad and so were my hips. It could just be a function of my age but my physiotherapist said she sees a lot of women doing I.V.F. for hip pain. ... One of my ovaries, about two months after my last egg collection, was uncomfortable and twice the size it was before treatment." The doctor responds by asking her how she's doing financially. She suggests Leigh give it one last try. "A few days later I wrote to ask the doctor a very specific question that I hadn't thought - or dared - to ask before : In the last year, what percentage of women my age at the clinic had taken home a baby using their own eggs? Her answer: 2.8 percent for 44-year-olds." BELLE BOGGS, in "The Art of Waiting," gives a useful account of Virginia Woolf's frequent allusions in her diary to the pain of childlessness. "Let me watch the wave rise," Woolf wrote. "I watch. Vanessa. Children. Failure. Yes. Failure. Failure. The wave rises." A few years later, triumphantly finishing "The Waves," she wrote: "Children are nothing to this." "Few studies," Boggs writes, "have examined the effects of involuntary childlessness after medical treatment, but some psychologists have suggested that the myriad treatment options make it difficult for women to know when to stop- The availability of choices is known to decrease our happiness." Elsewhere in her diaries, Woolf describes the gradual fading as she grows older of her desire for a child: "Perhaps I have killed the feeling instinctively; or perhaps nature does." I.V.F, Boggs suggests, inhibits this process: "The desire for a biological child does not fade into ambivalence or deepen into wise acceptance, post-treatment: It only grows stronger." Boggs's wide survey of contemporary approaches to reproduction ("It is now possible for almost anyone with resources to become a parent") opens an ethical can of worms of some magnitude: The recipient of (successful) I.V.E treatment herself, Boggs reports on such issues as international surrogacy and the unprincipled behavior of some fertility clinics while trying to refrain from judging individuals for their choices. She asks a gay couple trying, so far without success, for a surrogate-egg-donor baby what they would tell their potential child about the way he or she came into the world. "We'll be very upfront with this kid," one of the fathers says. "We'll also say, you are our child, because that's what we believe." In this future-tense world, parenthood, that least perfectible of arts, is one long happy ending. Boggs's own father is more abrupt: "I once asked my father, 'Does having kids really squash all your dreams?' He thought for a minute. 'Yep,' he said. 'And it takes all your money too.'" "I reminded myself," Julia Leigh writes, after finally stopping her fertility treatment, "that since I'd been prepared to be a single mother ... I must also have divined an access to some tremendous reservoir of energy that would have made these things possible. My wish: It was a reservoir and not a mirage." From I to We, from I to This. Whom does a child belong to? What responsibility does it bear to those who ardently desired - or even designed - it without knowing what "it" was? The moral status of that desire remains undefined, even while its products abound. Leigh finds a fine image for it, and for the reality it leaves behind it: "After the avalanche, the bare face of the mountain. Under the sun and the moon." RACHEL CUSK is the author, most recently of "Outline."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 11, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
Boggs' (Mattaponi Queen, 2010) lyrical look at the heartbreak of infertility, part memoir and part essay collection, evolved from the title piece, which appeared to powerful effect in Orion and Harper's. Boggs sensitively and creatively explores infertility, the struggle to get pregnant, and the entire concept of waiting, which leads her to literature and pop culture. She also tackles her subject matter like a reporter, conducting interviews and drawing on her extensive research into parenthood in the animal world and medical interventions to coax Mother Nature along. With an eye to helping others, she also tucks in selected resources, such as RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association; the Broken Brown Egg, an online community for people of color; and the Pay It Forward Fertility Foundation, a nonprofit group giving financial help to couples who could not otherwise afford IVF. Waiting is a part of life and can build appreciation and wonder into the life you finally achieve, writes Boggs, now the mom of a daughter born through IVF. But you shouldn't have to wait forever. Deeply thoughtful, beautiful, and illuminating.--Springen, Karen Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Boggs's essays about "Plan B family making," which chronicle her experiences with her spouse, doctors, and peers while dealing with infertility, touch on universal themes of hope, loss, and identity. Boggs (Mattaponi Queen) shows a profound awareness of the value of story, drawing on fictional models of infertility such as those in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, conversations with childless female writing colleagues, and Joan Didion and Adrienne Rich's writings on motherhood, as well as her own fiction. Even though she calls herself "greedy for every kind of model," her reach for connection to the world feels expansive rather than self-centered. This is true when she is playfully musing on the behavior of pregnant gorillas, or explaining the culture and many associated acronyms and neologisms of online support groups for women trying to conceive. It is also true when she connects with the alienation and shame experienced by forced-sterilization victims, the ethical dilemmas of adoptive parents, and the financial troubles of couples who are driven toward reproductive procedures that insurance does not cover. Boggs's contemplative view of waiting as a mentally active practice offers comfort to those who cannot get exactly what they need even by the hardest of wishing. Agent: Maria Massie, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
"It's spring when I realize that I may never have children." So opens novelist Boggs's (fine arts, North Carolina State Univ.; Mattaponi Queen) memoir of infertility. The book chronicles the author's physical and emotional experiences with assisted reproductive technology (ART), interwoven with stories of other infertile couples. She also explores the choices available to these couples-ART, adoption, surrogacy-as well as the associated legal, financial, and ethical challenges, seasoned with side trips to explore subjects ranging from the exploitation of surrogates in Nepal to the reproduction of gorillas in an American zoo. Eloquent and insightful, Boggs never descends to self-pity, instead writing with empathy, compassion, and occasional humor, demonstrating respect for all types of households, including LGBT families and singles. While this is not intended to be a patient guide, the medical facts presented are accurately and appropriately detailed. VERDICT Readers struggling with infertility may find reassurance and comfort in Boggs's experiences; their loved ones will gain insight into the painful experience of infertility. All readers will appreciate the engaging prose and thought-provoking information.-Janet Crum, Northern Arizona Univ. Lib., Flagstaff © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
So much more than a memoir about trying to conceive.The situation in which Boggs (Mattaponi Queen, 2010) found herself has become increasingly common and is thus likely to resonate with a large readership. Having long put any thought of motherhood on holdusing birth control and focusing on her writing, career, husband, and the other priorities of a life without childrenshe figured that she would get pregnant when it was time. And when it was time, and then it seemed like time was running out, she couldn't. A book about the author and her husband might have seen suspense build along with expenses, with new and different options explored as readers wonder whether all of this will result in a baby. But this deeply empathetic book is about more than one woman's challenge; it's about the whole scope of maternal urges, of how culture (and literature) treat the childless (or "childfree"), how biases against medical intervention serve to stigmatize those who need such expensive (and not always successful) assistance, and how complicated can be the decisions about whether to adopt rather than continuing to attempt to conceive, the moral dimensions of international adoption (and surrogates), the additional hurdles facing gay couples, and the seemingly arbitrary differences between states as to what procedures are covered and to what financial limit. While dropping a couple of offhand references early on to the fact that, yes, she became a mother, Boggs writes with considerable heart and engagement about the decisions that are so tough for so many. "Nothing about this experience had been what we expected when we thought of having children, or even when we first guessed that the road to parenthood might be a long one," she reflects. "It was more uncomfortable and expensive than we imagined, and less private." In her reporting, researching, and sharing, Boggs has performed a public service for those in a similar positionand for anyone interested in the implications of parenthood or in a story well-told and deeply felt. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
