Television for Women - by Danit Brown (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For fans of Nightbitch, a darkly humorous debut novel asks what happens when motherhood isn't all it's cracked up to be . . .

Estie isn't sure she likes being eight months pregnant. She isn't even sure she likes her husband anymore, especially after he hid that he's been fired from his job. Hello parenthood! Goodbye life as Estie imagined it! Now, she's stranded and bloated and alone. Her cat is not a people person, and on top of it all, her best friend has been ignoring her calls ever since Estie told her about the baby.

After Estie gives birth, she begins to suspect that all the stories she's been told about motherhood might not be true. Having a child does not "complete" her. And that mythical connection with her baby? Well, she's still waiting. In fact, Estie fears she is destined to end up like her own mother--divorced and crying in the bathroom while her daughter stands outside the door and wonders if she's okay.

Startlingly honest and unsentimental, Television for Women explores the realities of life postpartum, the demands children make on women's identities and relationships--and the desperate lengths someone might go to in order to reclaim the person she once was.

Review Quotes

"I can think of no other novel that depicts the first months of parenthood and its disillusionments so honestly and with so much humor and pathos and clarity. An engrossing, hilarious read." --Rebecca Makkai, author of the New York Times bestseller I Have Some Questions for You

"Danit Brown has managed to write a post-partum page-turner. Television For Women is an intimate examination of female friendship, motherhood, longing and regret, all told with wonderfully dark humor. A brutal and delightful read." --Kiley Reid, author of the New York Times bestseller Such a Fun Age

"Fans of Rachel Cusk and Rachel Yoder, watch out: This knockout of a novel will have you up all night, frantically turning pages. Rarely have I felt so seen by a depiction of early motherhood, of the maternal mental load, of the cataclysmic changes women undergo when an infant enters their lives. I loved it and can't stop thinking or talking about it." --Joanna Rakoff, author of internationally bestselling book, My Salinger Year

"If there is a canon for writing about postpartum depression, I would like to nominate Danit Brown's Television For Women and then put it on the top of the list. I started to read this crazy thrill ride of a novel before bed and then stayed up until the middle of the night, not stopping until I was done." --Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air

"A sheer pleasure of a novel, written with all the gruesome grace and grit of a trusted friend with whom you can be completely, unselfconsciously honest. What a rare and precious thing in life, let alone literature." --Elisa Albert, author of Book of Dahlia

"Television for Women is a book you don't read so much as devour, so vividly alive on the page that you're sucked in and held there by forces beyond your control. It's a maternity thriller: impossible to put down because of the pitch perfect prose, and the feeling you get that someone out there totally understands you, that as bad as everything is, it's all going to somehow be miraculously okay. Readers are going to be eternally grateful to Danit Brown for finding them just when they needed her most and giving them the perfect thing they didn't even know they needed." --Thisbe Nissen, author of Osprey Island

About the Author

Danit Brown holds an MFA in fiction from Indiana University. Her stories have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Story, Glimmer Train, StoryQuarterly, and One Story. Her short story collection, Ask for a Convertible, was published in 2008. Brown currently teaches at Albion College in Michigan.