Honey Chicken

About this book

What happens when the dream of motherhood collides with mental illness? You consider buying a hazmat suit, ban all meat and produce, and isolate yourself inside a self-imposed quarantine.For Nola, becoming a mother brings a love more consuming than anything she has ever known-and a fear just as powerful. During pregnancy, ordinary decisions begin to feel dangerous. After her son is born, a shattered jar turns the kitchen into a contaminated wasteland; herpes, salmonella and measles permeate every surface outside, and each intrusive thought feels like a warning she cannot afford to ignore.As obsessive-compulsive disorder tightens its grip, Nola tries to protect her children from dangers no one else can see while her exhausted husband struggles to hold their young family together. Against the stark beauty of Alaska, she moves through postpartum depression, exposure therapy, another pregnancy, and the slow, imperfect work of learning to live without certainty.Written with startling candor and irreverent humor, Honey Chicken is not a polished portrait of maternal bliss. It is the story of a woman whose fierce love for her children becomes entangled with terror-and of how she begins to find her way back to them, her marriage, and herself.