Mass mothering : a novel / Sarah Bruni.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bruni, Sarah, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motherhood--Fiction.

Motherhood.

Grief--Fiction.

Grief.

Missing children--Fiction.

Missing children.

Translators--Fiction.

Translators.

Women--Violence against--Fiction.

Women.

Female friendship--Fiction.

Female friendship.

Genre:

Psychological fiction.

Dystopian fiction.

Fiction.

Novels.

Physical Description:

253 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2026.

Summary:

A debt-ridden translator drifts through life, caring for a young boy by day and chasing escape on nightclub dance floors by night. At a dive bar, she meets a troubled man whose belongings include a strange, unfinished book about a foreign town where boys have disappeared and their mothers gather to mourn and dance with their memories. Captivated by the mothers' collective grief and strength, she sets out to find the book's author and learn how the story ends. Instead, her search leads her to the traces of a murdered poet and a hidden legacy of courage, forcing her to confront violence, exile, and the healing power of shared loss.

A. is an amateur translator, living alone in an unforgiving, late-capitalist metropolis. Adrift and burdened by debt following a medical trauma, she makes rent caring for a young boy who is not and could never be her own. Her nights are spent on the dance floor, chasing spontaneous connection. There, she encounters N., who shares her numbed state and sometimes her bed. Among N.'s meager possessions, A. comes across a slim book about an unnamed foreign town of disappearing boys. The book, Field Notes, documents the stories of a community of mothers who assemble to mourn their missing sons together. A. is transfixed by this collective chorus of primal grief, the mothers' preternatural strength, and their intuitive care for each other. When a near-assault stuns A. out of her inertia, she takes off for the city where Field Notes was written in search of its author and the end of his story. But A.'s digging leads her instead to the traces of a murdered poet, a mysterious woman whose legacy will intersect unexpectedly and pivotally with A.'s own life.

ISBN:

9781250392619

1250392616

OCLC:

1513907825

Publisher Number:

90104032676