Flesh & Blood: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life: A Memoir

by N. West Moss, Erin Spencer (Read by)

Overview

Honest, warm, and witty, this memoir reads like a chat with a dear friend sharing her insight and her vulnerabilities, taking us on the journey as she heals. Complete with family stories over cocktails and a new friend named Claude, who happens to be a praying mantis.

“I drive and say to myself, if I am dying, if this is how I die, then this is how I die.” When N. West Moss finds herself bleeding uncontrollably in the middle of a writing class, she drives herself to the hospital. Doctors are baffled, but eventually a diagnosis—hemangioma—is determined and a hysterectomy is scheduled. We follow Moss through her surgery, complications, and recovery as her thoughts turn to her previous struggles with infertility, to grief and healing, to what it means to leave a legacy.

Moss’s wise, droll voice and limitless curiosity lift this beautiful memoir beyond any narrow focus. Among her interests: yellow fever, good cocktails, the history of New Orleans, and, always, the natural world, including the praying mantis in her sunroom whom she names Claude. And we learn about the inspiring women in Moss’s family—her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother—as she sorts out her feeling that this line will end with her. But Moss discovers that there are other ways besides having children to make a mark, and that grief is not a stopping place but a companion that travels along with us through everything, even happiness.

With public figures like Chrissy Teigen and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, speaking out about infertility recently, women are eager for voices that acknowledge their struggles. Fans of Lena Dunham, Leslie Jamison, and Jenny Lawson—along with readers of medical memoirs like When Breath Becomes Air and The Bright Hour—will find that connection in Moss’s Flesh & Blood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665111034
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

N. West Moss is the author of the short story collection The Subway Stops at Bryant Park, which Kirkus called "gorgeously nuanced." Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, McSweeney’s, Ars Medica, and more. She is the recipient of three Faulkner-Wisdom gold medals and winner of The Saturday Evening Post's Great American Fiction Contest. A MacDowell fellow, as well as a fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA) and Cill Rialaig in Ireland, she has been a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Moss holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a CPA in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She is an Academic Programs Specialist at one of the New Jersey State universities, where she also teaches medical humanities and creative process classes.

Read by Erin Spencer, Kyla Garcia, Caitlin Davies, Amy Landon, and Soneela Nankani

Editorial Reviews

08/30/2021

“My uterus and I have been at odds for forever,” writes essayist Moss (The Subway Stops at Bryant Park) in this powerful account of her decades-long battle with infertility. Moss doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the physical and emotional ramifications of her three miscarriages—the first of which occurred when she was 41—each detailed as a devastating and distinctly gory affair. “I have spent a lot of my life cleaning up after myself in fear and shame,” she writes. Her struggle to bring a child to full term was eventually explained when she was diagnosed with a uterine hemangioma, an extremely rare, benign tumor, which led to her decision to have a hysterectomy. When she resolved to write about the surgery online, she was met with an outpouring of similar stories from friends and strangers. “Each person’s grief is an ocean wide,” she reflects, “forced into a thimble.” In poetic language that’s by turns blunt and tender, Moss chronicles how she and her husband weathered their sorrow and surfaced from it, dignity still intact, their love “made up of the things we couldn’t give to one another, but also full of how hard we tried.” This is as an enriching addition to the canon of literature around infertility. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Flesh Blood sparks and consoles. So frank and warm and full of humor, this book became a friend to me. I want to keep its tenderness and stunning wisdom always as my guide.”
—Jackie Polzin, author of Brood
 
“N. West Moss is an exemplary talent. The words come alive on the page. You feel as though you are living inside this luminous book.”
—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels
 
“Remarkable . . . Delightful . . . [Moss has] an admirably light touch in describing adversity.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“The few-page chapters are warm slices of life . . . Warm and humorous writing enlivens a memoir of chronic illness and infertility.”
—Shelf Awareness
 
“A moving, well-rendered portrait of the seriously ailing artist. Her careful, lovely sentences and good-humored and thoughtful observations seem to be . . . a part of her healing . . . A healing balm, this inviting memoir lights a path through grief and illness.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 
“[A] powerful account of [Moss’s] decades-long battle with infertility . . . In poetic language that’s by turns blunt and tender, Moss chronicles how she and her husband weathered their sorrow and surfaced from it, dignity still intact, their love ‘made up of the things we couldn’t give to one another, but also full of how hard we tried.’ This is as an enriching addition to the canon of literature around infertility.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“Moss’s meditations on questions her experience have raised are full of calm maturity and quiet humor and give this book an appeal beyond its expected audience . . . Moss’s contemplations on life in general will resonate with women who are seeking peace and meaning in their own lives.”
—Library Journal

“N. West Moss doesn't romanticize our world; she loves it honestly, in all its messiness. As I read Flesh Blood I saw not only that world but also the human body anew. This memoir is a tender, elegant, wry meditation on being a woman, being sick, and recovering; on reading and nature; on loving foremothers and rendering them into history with word rather than womb."
—V.V. Ganeshananthan, co-host, "Fiction/Non/Fiction" podcast, Literary Hub, and author of Love Marriage

“Part journey into the dark crevices of illness, but also a paean to the joys of the daily world, N. West Moss opens her arms wide and embraces the reader with her brilliant—and hilarious—observations. This book uncovers the wonderful ‘brightness in the middle’ for anyone who has navigated medical puzzles, grief, or just . . . life.”
—Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of Somebody’s Daughter
 
“N. West Moss brings us on a journey that is both medical and spiritual. We experience the vertiginous churn of diagnosis and treatment, but also the liberating clarity of connection with the world. Honest, thoughtful, and courageous.”
—Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error
 
 “A captivating, multilayered story of perseverance. It turns out that the real subject of Flesh Blood is not so much illness as the author’s ever-regenerating powers of vision, her appreciation of the tangible world, the beauty of the here and now.”
—Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance
 
“An amazing book! Moss has a gift for describing stones, plants, celery soup and even praying mantises as needed accompaniments to sickness and recovery, along with her kind husband and generous mother. Her singular stories, honesty, and sly humor infuse this memoir of illness not with sadness, but joy.”
—Theresa Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Shift

“With a series of gentle incisions, this memoir cuts deep. Moss shows us a grief and gladness that, until now, we could not name.”
—Martha Witt, author of Broken As Things Are
 

From the Publisher

08/27/2021

After short story writer Moss (Subway Stops at Bryant Park) begins bleeding uncontrollably, a round of hospital visits and testing return a diagnosis of uterine hemangioma and a recommended solution of a hysterectomy. This memoir of Moss's surgery and recovery explores infertility, miscarriage, and women's experiences of health care and gives an equal amount of space to the healing and joy the author finds in the world around her (including her house's resident praying mantis) and reflections on her relationships with her mother, who shepherds Moss through her slow recovery, and her grandmother, a former New Orleans belle who offered Moss a calm space when she was young and overwhelmed. Moss's meditations on questions her experience have raised are full of calm maturity and quiet humor and give this book an appeal beyond its expected audience. How does one find peace when their body turns against them? How does one carry their grief? Who holds a family's secrets and stories when the lineage comes to an end? VERDICT This memoir is full of sensitive thoughts on childlessness and infertility. Moss's contemplations on life in general will resonate with women who are seeking peace and meaning in their own lives.—Kathleen McCallister, William & Mary Libs., Williamsburg, VA

Library Journal

★ 2021-08-18
A moving, well-rendered portrait of the seriously ailing artist.

Moss starts the first chapter with a definition of the word exsanguinate, chronicling how she was literally bleeding out in her creative writing class. From that bloody beginning, the author delivers an engaging, even charming memoir. At 52, she had known the grief of miscarriage and infertility for a decade, partly alleviated by her husband's excellent suggestion: "Hey, what if we just tried to be happy anyway? I mean we can't make the sadness go away, but maybe we can be happy too, at the same time?" Her alarming bleeding only increased in severity, opening a long season of incapacity, surgery, recovery, relapse, and, finally, healing. Throughout, it feels like Moss is taking our hands and allowing us to accompany her on this journey. Her careful, lovely sentences and good-humored and thoughtful observations seem to be as much a part of her healing as her 84-year-old mother, who came to care for her, her kind, hardworking husband, and the team of doctors she sees so often: “It gets so that I am comfortable having a room full of men bending down between my legs and looking in there like I am a car with my hood up. Get so comfortable in fact that I feel like I could walk around the doctor’s office half-naked and not feel self-conscious.” Another key figure is the author's late grandmother, whom she only knew for one year when she was 6 years old but whose memory inspires warmth and peace to this day. As in Jackie Polzin's recent novel Brood, to which this book is similar in spirit, the natural world plays an important role, but here, instead of chickens, there is a praying mantis named Claude and several cats, both domestic and feral.

A healing balm, this inviting memoir lights a path through grief and illness.

Kirkus Reviews