Melville House
July 2025
On Sale: June 24, 2025
272 pages ISBN: 1685891837 EAN: 9781685891831 Kindle: B0DHWS8HX8 Trade Paperback / e-Book / audiobook Add to Wish List
For fans of Nightbitch, a darkly humorous debut novel asks what happens when motherhood isnβt all itβs cracked up to be . . .
Estie isnβt sure she likes being eight months pregnant. She isnβt even sure she likes her husband anymore, especially after he hid that heβs been fired from his jobβjust in time for parenthood. Goodbye upward mobility! Goodbye life as Estie imagined it! Now, sheβs stranded and bloated and alone. Her cat is not a people person, and on top of it all, her best friend has been ignoring her calls ever since Estie told her about the baby.Β
After Estie gives birth, she begins to suspect that all the stories sheβs been told about motherhood might not be true. Having a child does not βcompleteβ her. And that mythical connection with her baby? Well, sheβs still waiting. In fact, Estie fears she is destined to end up like her own motherβdivorced and crying in the bathroom while her daughter stands outside the door and wonders if sheβs okay.Β
Startlingly honest and unsentimental, Television for Women explores the realities of life postpartum, the demands children make on womenβs identities and relationshipsβand the desperate lengths someone might go to in order to reclaim the person she once was.