The Push
Women are supposed to be good wives, good mothers, good daughters… but what if they aren’t?
Blythe and her new baby daughter, Violet, fail to bond. Blythe is exhausted and depressed, and Violet seems only to like her father. As Violet grows, she starts bullying other children. Blythe thinks there’s something wrong with Violet—but her husband thinks Blythe is the problem.
Blythe wonders if she’s just not cut out to be a mother. But when her second child is born—a boy, Sam—she discovers she’s capable of maternal warmth after all: Sam is her delight. And Violet seems to adore him too. Until she doesn’t.
This novel is tense and suspenseful, hard to put down as we experience mounting anxiety. Any mother—any parent—will recognize the ambivalence that comes with new parenthood, and the fears and questioning that can arise. But few will find themselves fearing their own child. It’s not clear whether Blythe is unjustly blaming Violet. Can a child be evil?
This is Ashley Audrain’s debut novel, but—unlike many first novels—it burst onto the publishing scene with a bang in the summer of 2019, winning a two-book deal for a reported $3 million. Translation rights deals for over thirty other countries followed, along with a nine-way bidding war for the film rights. When the book finally appeared, in January 2021, it became an instant bestseller on the New York Times and Globe and Mail lists.
Audrain was born in 1982 and grew up in Newmarket, Ontario. She always wanted to write, and took some fiction writing courses after university while working in public relations. In 2012 she joined Penguin Canada as publicity director. In 2015 she left on maternity leave, but her new son had health problems so she decided to become a stay-at-home mom. After a few months she wanted to begin writing again, so she hired a babysitter for a few hours a week to make this possible.
By June 2019 she had written several drafts of her novel and began approaching agents. But instead of encountering the rejections many new writers experience, an agent fell in love with her manuscript almost right away. Within a month, that agent had negotiated the deal with Penguin as well as the international and film rights.
Despite the book arriving during the pandemic—making a traditional book tour impossible in 2021—this has not impeded the book’s success. It’s been ballyhooed in such publications as Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Washington Post, USA Today, Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, and Working Mother, as well as the New York Times and the Globe and Mail.
Audrain’s second novel (working title The Whispers) is expected to appear in 2022. She lives in Toronto with her husband and their two preschool children.
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