On Mother’s Day, Here Are 2 Novels That Get Babies Right

Dear readers,

For the past few months I’ve been on a scavenger hunt. Where are the fully realized babies in fiction? I wasn’t after infants who are incidental to the plot; I wanted babies whose babyhood was essential to the story.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this itch. It has been the year of the baby for my loved ones. Blink, and a friend’s little bundle of semi-consciousness has grown to the size of a koala. What’s going on in there, little guy?

Look, babies freak me out. Whenever I’m around them I worry about doing something that will forever alter their lives, like holding a bottle at the wrong angle or making curse words sound cool. But I don’t see them exiting my life any time soon, and this is an irrational, unbiological fear that I’d like to overcome. Enter literary exposure therapy.

My holy grail? A bouncing, gurgling Chekhov’s gun. If a baby appears in the first act, I expect it to start crawling by the last. I’m pleased to share the results of my spelunking: a can-do, women-run novel from Barbara Kingsolver and a deeply weird, overlooked British story that puts a baby’s existence into grotesquely brilliant prose. The children are our future; teach them well and let them lead the way.

—Joumana