Breasts

By the time I was ten, I knew that breasts were in my future. It was something to look forward to, but I sensed that it was also something to fear, that breasts turned the female body into an object with the potential to cause harm. Who was at risk?

In this short, striking memoir, Jean Hannah Edelstein charts the course of her unexpectedly brief relationship with breasts.

As she comes of age, she learns that breasts are a source of both shame and power. In early motherhood, she sees her breasts transform into a source of sustenance and a locus of pain. And then, all too soon, she is faced with a diagnosis and forced to confront what it means to lose and rebuild an essential part of yourself.

Funny and moving, elegant and furious and full of heart, Breasts is an original and indispensable read. It is both an intimate account of one woman’s relationship with her own body and a universally relatable story for anyone who has ever had – or lost – breasts.