Jayne Anne Phillips has been highly praised in the past for her prose - mainly for the novels Shelter and Machine Dreams (Greek translation by Lisa Samloglou, titled Machines of Dreams, published by Estia bookstore).
In her recent novel, Phillips deals with the complex themes of motherhood, birth, love, and death with great literary skill. Describing a melancholic and harsh everyday life, light years away from the American dream. Illuminating the deeper instincts and emotions, the conflicts and contradictions that life entails for Kate - the heroine - as she experiences pregnancy and motherhood while her mother dies of cancer. Being the mother of her own child while her own mother is in a phase where she is unable to take care of herself, Kate becomes a mother at the same time, transitioning almost instantaneously from bohemian carefreeness to a more complex reality.
An illusory peaceful story about our world, a world where the most important things happen without cause, without explanation, and without the possibility of return. A book about what happens within us when everything we knew is lost, while violently realizing our weakness and, at the same time, our absurdly great power.