Mother Animal is a memoir of pregnancy, birth and early motherhood, and a wild deep dive into stories of animal parenting from the natural world. As she finds her way through the joys and challenges of life with a newborn, Jukes reveals the faulty assumptions and patriarchal thinking in society's go-to image of the good, ‘natural’ mother, and ventures out into new research from evolutionary biology, zoology, microbiology and toxicology to ask what it means to inhabit a maternal body today. Bringing these insights back into the silent pressures and intimate discoveries of her domestic space, a startling new vision of motherhood emerges - one that is live, dynamic, and radically connected; as contingent and vulnerable as the world in which we live. From the author of A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings
A tense masterpiece that blows societal ideas about parenthood wide open. To better understand ourselves as the animals that we are, we all need to read this book.
- Marchelle Farrell author of Uprooting
Extraordinary... Read it to feel a slow detonation of mind-blowing understanding. I adored every moment.
- Daisy Johnson author of Sisters
Jukes has a genius for getting straight to the heart of the matter. And when the matter is the whole business of how to live properly as a human, you simply must hear what she has to say. It will change you.
- Charles Foster author of Cry of the Wild
Helen Jukes has created an enrapturing, bizarre, and compelling story of motherhood as told through the wider animal kingdom. She expertly mixes genre to create something altogether unique and compelling - a memoir-cum-zoological-masterpiece. Prepare to be sharing obscure animal birthing facts at every dinner party going forwards.
Bea Hughes Online bookseller