The Need

"When stressed paleobotanist and mother of two Molly begins to find strange items at a dig and a deer-head-masked stranger in her living room, she slowly realizes that her feelings of otherness about parenthood have, in a sense, come alive – forcing her to come to terms with how childbirth and mothering have changed her, perhaps beyond her own recognition. Helen Phillips writes with energy and experimentalism, including aspects of child rearing that are slapstick and joyous as well as life-altering and draining. It’s a book that starts out as a mystery, morphs into comedy and ends … well, you’ll have to read it to understand how perfect the ending is."