Pulitzer Prize finalist Rachel Aviv, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has released a new collection of essays titled You Won't Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters, which examines the complexities of the mother-daughter bond. The book, published in the US by Knopf and set for UK release on July 9 via Fern Press, reworks five of Aviv's previous New Yorker pieces with a focus on this relationship.
Aviv's Approach to Motherhood
In an interview, Aviv expressed her desire to avoid sentimental portrayals of motherhood. "There is a way of writing about motherhood that can be very sentimental and reductive and kind of boring," she said. Instead, she aimed to explore the dynamic in a way that allows readers to reflect on their own experiences. The title is taken from Alice Munro's short story The Children Stay, which describes a mother's chronic pain after leaving her children.
Contents of the Collection
The book includes profiles of psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, which won a 2022 National Magazine award, and the story of Linda Bishop, a woman who spent her final months in an abandoned farmhouse. Another essay, about Alice Munro's daughter Andrea Robin Skinner, received a George Polk award. Aviv also includes a personal preface recounting her childhood with a mother who aspired to be a writer.
Aviv noted that revisiting the Bishop story made her realize she had neglected to ask about Bishop's experience as a mother. "I was really into the idea of a psychiatric case study, for many years," she said. "But that narrow focus was like I had allowed for the interiority of one person and not the other part of that dynamic."
Impact and Style
Aviv's writing is known for its empathy and attention to detail. Her previous collection, Strangers to Ourselves (2022), explored mental health through case studies. In You Won't Get Free of It, she aims to tell entire lives rather than just case studies. The book is discourse-free, focused on storytelling rather than argument. Aviv said, "I guess you convince yourself that what you write is the only way the story could have been written."
