THE NURSERY

An overwhelmed new mother vents.

The mood in this debut novel is claustrophobic, and no wonder, since the unnamed narrator refuses to leave her apartment, much to the chagrin of her supportive but increasingly concerned and frustrated husband, John. She won’t even go to the first two checkups for their daughter, Button—well, that’s not her real name, the woman informs us: “The baby I hold in my arms is a leech, let’s call her Button.” Molnar grittily conjures the exhaustion and disorientation of the first weeks with a first child in a narration that voices furious resentment of Button’s insatiable demands and some scary thoughts about harming her. John’s cheerful acceptance of their new routine is easy for him, she bitterly muses; he gets to go to the office and sleep through the night while she gets up to nurse yet again. Miffo (the narrator’s name for her floundering postpartum self) lost her own mother as a girl and painfully feels the lack of a maternal role model; John and well-meaning friends try to help, but she pushes them all away, becalmed in severe depression. Only an elderly upstairs neighbor, who initially knocks on her door to complain about the baby crying, becomes an odd sort of confidant, and then dies. Wistful memories of time with John “before” and of her work as a translator, when “I could choose between this word or that [and] linger in silence,” will strike a chord with anyone who remembers the difficult adjustment to life ruled by someone else’s needs, but Miffo seems never to experience the moments of joy that, for most new parents, at least occasionally alleviate the equally powerful exhaustion, anger, and sorrow. She strikes one dreary note throughout, and by the time she finally emerges from her depression and steps outdoors, readers may well be very tired of her.

Commendably honest but not compelling fiction.