‘Fresh Hell’ details disasters and delights of motherhood

The book, Fresh Hell: Motherhood in Pieces, published by Demeter Press, isn’t about perfect moments with your in­fant and it doesn’t dispense sensible advice or proscribe schedules to manage the lawless days and nights of early maternity.

Instead, this literary think piece, an Eat, Pray Love for the smarter mommy crowd, see­saws from disaster to FreshHellBookdelight, horror to grim resigna­tion, much like motherhood itself. An antigen to the anodyne, mother-knows-least tone of such tomes as What to Expect in the First Year, Fresh Hell answers Dorothy Parker’s question —”What fresh hell is this?”— in exhaustive detail.

Published by Demeter Press, Fresh Hell is an exploration into the good, bad and ugly of motherhood

It’s written by Carellin Brooks, the author of 100 Days of Rain, Wreck Beach, and Every Inch a Woman. She has also ed­ited two collections, on bad jobs and, with co-editor Brett Josef Grubisic, Canadian sex writing.

Fresh Hell, provides 52 spare meditations, one for each week of baby’s first year, cover subjects from baby poop to more baby poop, breastfeeding and its relation to same, broken nights and endless days, and all the other low points of having a baby.

The book’s raw prose reminds frantic and time-strapped new moms that their brains are only temporarily on vacation. And its moments of poetry assure them that the madness they experience is intermittently divine.

For more information, contact Demeter Press’ distributor, Brunswick Books at 416-703-3598. Demeter Press is the publishing arm of the Motherhood Initiative for Research & Community Involvement, founded and directed by York Professor Andrea O’Reilly.