A transfixing tale of motherhood and friendship
Guadalupe Nettel’s new novel evokes the value of kindness and the unpredictability of life
The narrator of Guadalupe Nettel’s transfixing fourth novel makes what she calls “the best decision of her life”: she resolves to get her tubes tied. In the past Laura, now a 30-something graduate student, had been tempted by the idea of pregnancy, “just as someone who without ever having contemplated suicide, allows themselves to be seduced by the abyss from the top of a skyscraper”. After the surgery, she describes the procedure to her friend Alina as “the perfect precaution”, an inoculation against the pressures that society heaps on women.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The pity of tiny feet”
From the July 2nd 2022 edition
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