Gwendolen Gross
he Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross speaks to the tension between stay at home moms and working moms. This new motherhood book leads moms to explore their own choices about balancing work and family and the conflicts of motherhood. The Other Mother touches on issues of friendship, love, and identity common to all moms, both working moms and stay at home moms.
The Christian Science Monitor says “Getting Out (by Gwendolen Gross) follows that old American tradition afforded by all this glorious empty land—an invigorating place to reinvent oneself, a tempting escape from domestic responsibility, a terrifying challenge to test one's mettle. But Gross has feminized this national myth in a way that reminds us that Huck Finn was just a boy and Rabbit Angstrom was just unbearable . . . A light summer novel in the best sense. Her voice shimmers with wit . . . Gross captures the erotic freshness of woods and avid outdoorsmen with perfect clarity . . . Gross dares to wander off the path and explore the dark underbrush of this temptation to abandon the ones we love, the ones who need us.”
In this mesmerizing first novel by Gwendolen Gross, a young American graduate student abandons her research in the Australian rain forest to investigate her professor’s mysterious disappearance. Still unsure about her brother’s drowning death—was it an accident, or suicide?—Annabel Mendelssohn leaves her laboratory job in Chicago for a remote region of Australia, where she has a grant to study spectacled fruit bats as part of a field studies program. She spends her time between classes watching bats, discovering waterfalls, and picking leeches out of her eyes.
Gwendolen Gross is the author of The Other Mother, Getting Out, and Field Guide. Her most recent novel, The Other Mother is described by Booklist as “an electrifyingly complex and explosively gripping portrait of contemporary, have-it-all motherhood.”
She graduated from Oberlin College, received an MFA in fiction and poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and was selected for the PEN West Emerging Writers Fellowship.
In addition to her novels, she has published poems and stories in dozens of literary magazines, as well as essays in collections including It's A Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons and It's A Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters.
About the author
Dubbed the reigning queen of womens adventure fiction by Joanna Smith Rakoff in Book Magazine, Gwendolen Gross grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she studied science writing and voice performance. She spent a semester in Australia with a field studies program, studying spectacled fruit bats in the rainforest remnants of Northern Queensland.
After college Ms. Gross moved to San Francisco, then San Diego, and worked in publishing, as well as performing with the San Diego Opera Chorus. Through the San Diego Writing Center, she was selected for the PEN West Emerging Writers Program.
Ms. Gross received an M.F.A. in fiction and poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poems have been published in dozens of literary magazines, including Salt Hill Journal, Global City Review, The Laurel Review, and Hubbub, where her poem was selected for the 1999 Adrienne Lee Award.
Her first novel, Field Guide, was issued by Henry Holt in April 2001 (Harvest paperback 2002), and her second, Getting Out, in spring 2002. These two women's adventure fiction novels received critical acclaim. Ms. Gross then shifted her focus to the dramas of motherhood. Ms. Gross' most recent novel, The Other Mother, was released in August 2007 by Random House. Ms. Gross lives in northern New Jersey with her family.
Ms. Gross is also an award-winning writing instructor and has led workshops at Sarah Lawrence College and the UCLA Extension online. Her guest lectures include appearances at the Fashion Institute of Technology, at Barnes and Noble's Educator's Night, and The World's Largest Writing Workshop. Ms. Gross has worked as a snake and kinkajou demonstrator, naturalist, opera singer, editor, and mom. She lives in northern New Jersey with her family.
The Other Mother
"An electrifyingly complex and explosively gripping portrait of contemporary, have-it-all motherhood."
- Booklist
"Gross's third novel documents the front lines of the Mommy Wars, but its real strength lies is exposing the complex inner battlefields motherhood can open up."
- Publisher's Weekly
"Editor's Choice"
- RedBook magazine
"The battle of The Other Mother is a dark look into everything that tears us apart and brings us closest together."
- Dame magazine
"A must-read for mothers with literary interest."
- The Roanoke Times
"The depth of Gross' portraits, and the nobility she imbues both moms with, renders a thoughtful account of how, for modern mothers, there is no easy choice."
- Boston Now
Getting Out
"A winning novel from the author of Field Guide."
"Funny, touching, and exhilarating."
- Publishers Weekly
“Even committed couch potatoes should enjoy the graceful blending of outdoor adventuring and wry immersion in family dynamics that distinguishes this engaging second novel by Gross.”
- Kirkus Reviews
"Gross captures the erotic freshness of woods and avid outdoorsmen with perfect clarity.”
- Christian Science Monitor
“Witty, smart, and inspiring, Getting Out chronicles the adventures in love, family, and the great outdoors of its unique and engaging heroine, Hannah Blue.”
- Jenny McPhee, author of The Center of Things
Field Guide
“Credible and inspiring.”
“The certitudes of scientific research yield to the unsolvable mysteries of emotional connection in this accomplished debut. Gross's deceptively spare style glistens with pungent language and precise aperçus.”
“Stunning. A remarkable debut.”
-—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“This beautifully written debut novel offers appealing characters and provides a unique view into the sensuous scientific world of field study with all of its attendant hardships and marvels. Recommended for all public libraries.” —
- Library Journal
- “A compelling, quirky winner.” — - Glamour magazine
The Other Mother at Amazon.com
Getting Out at Amazon.com
Field Guide at Amazon.com
Essay in "It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Boys"
Essay in "It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Girls"
Gwendolen's online writing workshop for moms
My Life As It Is review
Work It, Mom! review
The-Other-Mother.com
Working Moms Against Guilt review
Go Go Mommy review
Excerpt from "The Other Mother"
Contact me:
Finally, hours after Amanda was due back, there was a scrabbling sound at the door. I got up, then sat back down on the couch. Malena had fussed herself back to a temporary sliver of sleep.
Amanda flurried into the kitchen. She sighed even as she opened the door. She dumped a briefcase and a coat on the kitchen floor. Her face was etched with worry, and with something else.
"I can't do this, I can't leave her," she said. Just as I was thinking, "I can't do this, I can't keep taking her." But I didn't say it. Amanda was crying. I'd never seen her cry, even on the night her house was crushed, even the first morning away from her baby, even with relief on the nights she came late to pick her up. But she'd never been this late.
"Why are you so late?" I asked, more snappish than I'd intended.
"God, Thea," she said. She sat beside me and reached for Malena, unbuttoning her blouse. "There was a train accident. I tried to call, but there was no reception and then my battery died. It was stupid, and I didn't know what to do. Someone was hit by the train. Someone was so sad he jumped in front of the train. And the brake screamed and there was this thunk, even way back in my car. We killed him. I don't really want to think about it, but I still looked really quickly, when they finally let us onto the platform to walk to the shuttles. I won't tell you what it looked like." She gasped, sobbed a little more.
"We had to wait for hours, and I was late to start with, and then the bus got caught in traffic in Lyndhurst. It was so awful, his arm - I can't talk about this."
Malena had latched on, and Amanda's face softened with the relief and pleasure of nursing. In her cream-colored suit with her blouse unbuttoned, she leaned to the side while she nursed, slumping toward me, then resting against me. It didn't feel wrong. I wasn't angry with her anymore. I was trying to be nicer, to like her more. That had been my first instinct, to like Amanda. She was certainly heavier than a child, but as temporarily wretched as a 2-year-old whos fallen off the bigger kids' slide at the playground. I let her lean. I could smell her milk, sweet and grassy.
"I can't leave her. It isn't worth it," she said again, turning her face to me. There was a ghost of plum-colored lipstick on her lips. I'd never noticed how soft her mouth looked, how the top lip peaked in a perfect bow.
"It's okay, sweetheart," I said forgetting for a second that she wasnt one of mine.
© Gwendolen Gross, 2010.
