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The Unfamiliar

On sale

6th June 2024

Price: £10.99

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Selected: Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780349016580

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE SOCIETY SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

An unconventional, unexpectedly funny, brutally honest memoir about infertility, pregnancy and motherhood

‘You and your partner want a baby. But your two bodies can’t make a baby together.’

If you want a baby but your body says otherwise –
If you don’t know the polite way to say thank you for the sperm –
If you’re waiting for the sound of a brand-new heartbeat –
If you know it takes a village to raise a baby but have no idea who should be doing what –

If you’re lurching between bliss and bewilderment –
If you don’t fit the shape of what you’ve been told a mother should be –
Reach for The Unfamiliar and don’t let go.

Moving and immersive, and written with wisdom, disarming humour and raw honesty, The Unfamiliar casts a fresh eye on motherhood and challenges our assumptions about pregnancy, gender roles, queer identity and what it means to be a parent.

Reviews

Marianne Levy, author of Don't Forget to Scream
What a book this is, probing gender roles and expectation, identity and desire. Luminous writing captures the uncertainty, the fear, the sheer physicality of love. It is wonderful
Laura Dockrill, author of What Have I Done?
Cold, hard, raw writing that somehow sets your heart on fire. I could not put it down
Lotte Jeffs, Guardian
Searingly honest. There is something inherently strange about nurturing a person inside your body and then giving birth to it ... Logan does an excellent job of portraying the reality - the beauty and the horror of it
Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat
When pregnancy grabs hold of a body it uses it to tell a very old story, but The Unfamiliar insists on a telling that is vibrantly new. The result is a book of desire, of bewilderment, of joy, of grief, and of love. Kirsty Logan writes with bright wit and wonder - I read this book in awe
Pragya Agarwal, author of (M)otherhood
Such a fierce, honest, beautifully written account of love, and queer motherhood. I found it very moving. Logan manages to bring the tiniest detail in kaleidoscopic detail for the reader, but in such precise poetic prose. A marvel
Kate Maxwell, author of Hush
I loved The Unfamiliar - a courageous and sharply written account of a meandering journey to motherhood and all the emotional and physical struggles it entails. Funny and intensely moving, with the most vivid description of birth I've ever read