The Abandoners

The best kind of book: the one you didnt know you were craving until it appeared . . . self-interrogative, intricately perceptive. I absolutely inhaled it JIA TOLENTINO A very richly interesting exploration of a complex subject. Begoa Gmez Urzaiz tells the stories with such intelligence and wit and generosity TESSA HADLEY When it comes to children: a man leaves, a woman abandons Ingrid Bergman, Muriel Spark, Maria Montessori, Joni Mitchell what do these vastly different women have in common? During the pandemic, trapped at home with young children and struggling to find creative space to write, journalist Begoa Gmez Urzaiz became fixated on artistic women who were able to overcome both societys judgement and their own maternal instincts in order to leave their children. More than anything, she was fascinated by her own prejudice towards these women, so clearly tied up in a much wider cultural bias. Using famous examples including Doris Lessing, fictional ones such as Anna Karenina, and interrogating modern trends like Momfluencers, Begoa reveals what our judgement of these women tells us about our judgement of all women. The best book I've read on the implications of motherhood and its opposites after Sheila Heti's Motherhood CLAUDIA DURASTANTI