The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem

"In this sweeping, deeply researched survey of mothers who were also gifted writers and artists, Julie Phillips explores the challenges of trying to balance motherhood with work that requires intense concentration. She focuses on the life stories of women who, in the postwar years, were expected to stay home with their children and made to feel guilty for their artistic ambitions. Her subjects, which include Alice Neel, Doris Lessing, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and Ursula K. Le Guin, struggled to find physical and mental space in which to create. Lucky for us, they did."