libre

I've managed to read a bit over the past few weeks. I really enjoyed Paramedic: On the Front Lines of Medicine and Ambulance Girl, excellently written memoirs that pretty much convinced me that EMT is not the career path for me. I just had to put down another book, Making It Up As I Go Along by Maria Lennon. This is a newly published novel which I got ahold of as an advance, uncorrected proof, a suprise occasional benefit of being a librarian's wife.

Making It Up As I Go Along is the story of Saffron, a war correspondent who finds herself pregnant at the age of 38. It begins as she and her newborn make it back to California, where Saffron grew up, and the novel is split between her life as a single mother, and memories of her time in Africa. You know, if I tried to tell details here, it would sound absurd enough to be a soap opera, and just like a soap opera, it drew me in. But I got halfway through it before I realized I felt worse after reading it than before---the stories from war-ravaged Sierra Leone are too gory and depressing for a mom who already has ppd.

If you're well removed from the postpartum bit, though, you might really enjoy this. Though I must warn my AP friends, Saffron is not exactly AP and pretty much has the point of view of a woman who has never really respected women who become mothers.


On the Tristan front---looks like he's gone down to one nursing a day without too much trauma. Whew.