THE MOTHER

Taking baby steps into motherhood.

Deutsch, a New Yorker cartoonist, always wanted to be a mother. The first step to achieving this dream, she decides, is “to find a partner.” Consequently, in her twenties, she begins dating a string of disappointing men. “Is it me?” she wonders. “Am I too picky?” In her mid-thirties, she meets Marc. “We had a particular dynamic,” she writes. “We were pragmatic and not very romantic.” Eventually, she takes “hold of Marc with just a finger or two” and, despite the tenuousness of the couple’s bond, decides to have a baby. Her pregnancy leads to a depression that forces the author to reckon with her family’s trauma history and her strained relationship with her own mother, both of which make Deutsch doubt her ability to parent. With the help of medication, her pregnancy improves. After giving birth, she fights past her insecurity and embraces a new feeling of empowerment while simultaneously battling sleep deprivation and the challenges of her relationship with Marc. With the help of couples counseling and individual therapy, she celebrates the first year of her child’s life with quiet triumph. Deutsch’s story is by turns lyrical, vulnerable, and circumspect. Her illustrations are vibrant and unexpected, and the book is full of touching and amusing moments. “Figuring out how to be a mom was like going through puberty again,” she writes, the text accompanying drawings of her in various frazzled states. But snuggling with her infant, she declares to herself, in a speech bubble, “God she smells good.”

A tender ode to new motherhood.