Cleave - by Holly Pelesky (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

At 21, Holly Pelesky gets pregnant after her second time having sex. She decides to place her daughter up for adoption and then move far away from her fundamentalist Christian upbringing to start a new life. Cleave is a tight collection of epistolary creative nonfiction that examines the ambiguous grief of being a birth mother caught in the momentum of adulthood and the constant choices that come along with it. In these letters to the daughter she didn't keep, Pelesky attempts to make peace with the decisions she's made as a mother and those she's made as someone's child. Full of hard realizations and tender moments, this book will break and mend your heart.

About the Author

Holly Pelesky writes essays, fiction, and poetry. She was once a homeschooled kid living in the suburbs of Seattle but has spent her adulthood in the Midwest, outgrowing her Fundamental upbringing. She received her MFA from the University of Nebraska. She works in a library, coaches slam poetry, and raises four boys with her partner in Omaha. Placing her daughter up for adoption will forever be the hardest thing she's done.