Description
Book Synopsis'Haunting, wild, and quiet at once. A shimmering look at motherhood, in all gothic pain and glory. I could not stop reading.' Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women
A harrowing account of one woman's reckoning with life, death and choice in Trump's America. For readers of Educated and Hillbilly Elegy.
In 2017, Christa Parravani had recently moved her family from California to West Virginia. Surviving on a teacher's salary, she was already raising two young children with her husband, screenwriter Anthony Swofford.
Another pregnancy, a year after giving birth to her second child, came as a shock. Christa had a history of ectopic pregnancies and was worried that she wouldn't be able to find adequate medical care. She immediately requested a termination - but her doctor refused to help. The only doctor who would perform an abortion made it clear that this would be illicit, not condoned by her colleagues or their community.
In exploring her own choice, or rather in discovering her lack of it, Christa reveals the desperate state of female healthcare in contemporary America.
'A brutally honest, rollercoaster of a journey that left me championing her bravery.' Esther Freud
'I will never forget this book. Read it. This is all I can say.' Rachel Louise Snyder
'Stunningly good' The Bookseller
'Everyone should read this book' Sarah Mansugo
Trade ReviewEDITOR'S CHOICE: The writing is
stunningly good * The Bookseller *
Haunting, wild, and quiet at once. A shimmering look at motherhood, in all gothic pain and glory.
I could not stop reading. * Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women *
Unflinchingly honest, Christa Parravani lays bare the terrors, exhaustion and the great sacrifice of a parent trying to provide a healthy life for her family. An
inspired memoir - and a reminder of the serious metal required of every ordinary woman. -- Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of the novel 'Sweetbitter' and the memoir 'Stray'
The book burrowed into some secret place in me, a place where it will exist not for weeks, or months, or even years, but forever. In my life, I will never forget this book.
Read it. This is all I can say. You must read it -- Rachel Louise Snyder, award-winning author of No Visible Bruises and What We’ve Lost is Nothing
A
searing testimony from the frontlines of American womanhood
. -- Kate Manning, author of A Notorious Life
Christa Parravani is
one of our great memoirists.
Loved and Wanted is a
breathtaking book of life and death. -- Scott McClannahan, author of The Sarah Book and Crapalachia
Everyone should read this book -- Sarah Manguso, author of 300 Arguments and Ongoing
Loved and Wanted paints an utterly necessary, groundbreaking portrait of so much more than one woman's choice, offering a fierce and essential explication of the many forces that constrain reproductive freedom...
Loved and Wanted challenges us to pay attention, to hold complexity, and to understand why we have to do better. -- Merritt Tierce
A brutally honest, rollercoaster of a journey that left me championing her bravery. * Esther Freud *
One of the best new books for the autumn...A harrowing critique of the US health system. * The i newspaper *
What emerges is not simply a portrait of Parravani's difficult marriage, painful health issues and stressful financial burdens but a complex picture of the unsayable circumstances that shape one woman's relationship to her body, to her choice to have children or not and to the cost of that decision. In saying the unsayable, Parravani is unflinching and brave. * Bookpage *
