The abandoners On mothers and monsters

Spanish journalist Urzaiz describes what would become the topic of her first book as a sort of obsession "beyond standard curiosity. It was as if I were compiling an inquiry file on mothers who had neglected their duties, a mental folder titled The Abandoners." As a mother and feminist, she is also uncomfortable with the judgment seemingly inherent in her obsession. Personal and uncomfortable as it may be, Urzaiz' fascination with these mothers resulted in 16 relatable, wise, surprising, and sometimes even humorous essays about women--famous and not--who in one way or another escaped the bonds of motherhood. Some of them left their children and produced great art; some made the choice lacking a better option. Moms played by Meryl Streep get their own essay. One piercing piece shares first-person experiences of mothers who work as caregivers abroad for the benefit of children at home they rarely get to be with. Anyone trying to be a good mother and also a creative, free, self-contained person will feel seen.

The challenges of mothering. Even before she became a mother, Spanish journalist and podcast host Gómez Urzaiz was fascinated--and horrified--by mothers, in real life or in fiction, who abandoned their children. In her engaging debut book, she melds memoir, biography, and cultural criticism to offer an incisive look at the causes and consequences of such women's decisions. Although she notes that most women who leave their children are "involuntary abandoners" whose families remain in their home country while they find work abroad, Gómez Urzaiz focuses on more well-known cases: women who have found motherhood stifling, hindering them from pursuing an intellectual or creative life, or--in the case of actor Ingrid Bergman or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina--because raising a child got in the way of a romantic relationship. These women include writers Muriel Spark, Doris Lessing, and Mercè Rodoreda; Gala Dalí, for whom a child was nothing more than an annoyance; Ibsen's Nora Helmer; and Joanna Kramer in the movieKramer vs Kramer. Spark left her 4-year-old son in the care of nuns in Africa when she left for Edinburgh; although she retrieved him when he was 6, she handed over his care to his grandparents while she devoted herself to writing. Lessing, at 21, left her two small children and went to work in a law office, living in her own flat and later emigrating to London. As a mother of two sons, struggling to keep up a career as a freelance journalist, Gómez Urzaiz is forthright about the demands of motherhood. Caring for young children, she admits, is "living in a state of perpetual attack." In most cases she recounts, though, abandonment leads to a state of perpetual sadness for mother and child. Perceptive, compassionate portraits. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.