Linea Nigra

Starred review from February 14, 2022
Barrera (On Lighthouses) offers a moving study of pregnancy, family, art, and loss in this showstopping essay. Told in small fragments that cover the arc of her pregnancy, birth, and nursing of son Silvestre, Barrera interweaves her grandmother’s history as a doula and her mother’s career as an artist with the changes wrought on her own body. Barrera powerfully captures the spectrum of feelings childbearing provokes, “when weariness and joy are mingled with a love so great it’s almost agonizing,” and confronts the loss and fear that shade “that simple, clear, almost ridiculous happiness.” She refers to two major losses, the earthquake that struck Mexico City in 2017 while she was pregnant, and her mother’s ovarian cancer discovered after Barrera’s son was born. Along the way, Barrera draws on the work of such writers as Adrienne Rich and Rivka Galchen, artists including Frida Kahlo, and photographer Tina Modotti. Barrera’s voice is meditative, bolstered by poetic turns of phrase, precise language, and fresh metaphors. “It’s impossible to be original when you write about being a mother,” Barrera reflects, though her own originality is striking. This beautiful meditation is thick with profound insights. Photos.

April 15, 2022
The linea nigra--the pregnancy line--is the dark, vertical line that runs down the bellies of many pregnant women and an apt title for essayist Barrera's memoir, a refreshingly different take on traditional what-to-expect titles for mothers-to-be. Barrera details everything from her easy conception (she got pregnant four weeks after she stopped taking the pill) to her thoughts about abortion to her feelings about giving birth again (she'd like to do it, "if only Alejandro could do the pregnancy part"). Meanwhile, she observes how biology is unkind to moms, ensuring that their children forget the first two years of their lives, when they're closest to their mothers. Barrera shares wise, often witty, insights into what it feels like to be going through the "fruit bowl" that is pregnancy as apps tell women the fetus resembles a blueberry one week and a lemon another. When she learns she is carrying a boy, she runs to the kitchen and tells her husband, "There's a man inside me!" Prepare to feel in awe of the female body and of Barrera's way with words.

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Starred review from February 15, 2022
A Mexican writer describes her pregnancy and the first months of her son's life. When Barrera first found out she was pregnant with her son, Silvestre, her husband suggested that she keep a pregnancy diary. Although she thought the idea of a pregnancy diary was "a little hackneyed," she admitted that she was writing about her experience, albeit mostly in fragments. As she was adjusting to her changing body, Barrera and her family lived through an earthquake that destroyed the home of the patron who owned a collection of Barrera's mother's paintings. The author intertwines her experiences of pregnancy and motherhood--from labor and delivery to breastfeeding to discovering her doctor's dishonesty--with a catalog of the condition of her mother's paintings. Throughout the narrative, Barrera includes historical anecdotes and quotes from other women who have written about motherhood, childbirth, and pregnancy--from Mary Shelley and Natalia Ginzburg to Rivka Galchen and Maggie Nelson--and she argues that pregnancy is a fundamentally literary experience. "Pregnancy is transformation in time, it's a retrospective account and--whether you like it not--there's a plot, a story," she writes. At the same time, she laments the fact that women are warned that having children signals the end of their literary careers. Here, she quotes Ursula K. Le Guin: Women "have been told that they ought not to try to be both a mother and a writer because both the kids and the books will pay--because it can't be done--because it is unnatural." The story ends in the early months of Silvestre's life, which coincided with her mother's treatment for ovarian cancer; this leads the author to examine the cyclical nature of motherhood. Barrera communicates her trenchant observations in gorgeous, highly efficient prose that sharply reflects the fragmented reality of pregnancy and early parenthood. Rather than adhering to a traditional narrative structure, the author follows her trains of thought wherever they take her, and readers will be happy to tag along. A uniquely lyrical account of early motherhood.

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