{"product_id":"all-the-mothers-isbn-9780593734056","title":"All the Mothers","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWelcome to “the mommune.”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author Domenica Ruta comes a “delightful and honest”* novel about a single mom reimagining what the perfect family can look like. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Have you ever gotten screwed over by a man you never cared all that much for to begin with? Join the club. . . . A joyful journey about the trials of motherhood and found family.”—\u003ci\u003eHarper’s Bazaar*\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSandy thought she was making her greatest mistake yet when she got unexpectedly pregnant in her mid-thirties by a dating-app flop. Now, her baby Rosie is the love of her life, but trying to co-parent with her daughter’s dad, a wannabe rock star, is a challenge—and seems to be veering into catastrophe territory when Sandy finds out through social media that her daughter has a half-sibling Sandy doesn’t know anything about.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEnter her ex’s ex, Stephanie, the other mother. Sandy is prepared to hate her but when the two women meet, they are shocked to learn how much they have in common beyond the deadbeat father their children share. Now Sandy needs to figure out what her and Rosie’s family looks like with all these new additions. Could life in a “mommune” be the answer to her prayers, or just a new brand of chaos?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this winning story of family both born and chosen, Sandy is about to discover that when nothing goes as planned, the best things become possible.“Have you ever gotten screwed over by a man you never cared all that much for to begin with? Join the club . . . This delightful and honest novel by Domenica Ruta . . . is a joyful journey about the trials of motherhood and found family.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHarper's Bazaar, \u003c\/i\u003e“The 20 Best Beach Reads”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAll the Mothers\u003c\/i\u003e is written by one of the most talented and shockingly good writers of our time. There is depth here, there is grace, and this story will resound as a rallying cry for mothers everywhere for generations to come. If you have ever had a mother or been cared for, this book is for you, meaning this book is for everyone.”\u003cb\u003e—Chelsea Bieker, author of \u003ci\u003eMadwoman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No one writes about motherhood like Domenica Ruta. Seriously, no one. With tremendous humor, intelligence, wisdom, and, of course, heart, Ruta takes a hard, unflinching look at exactly what it takes to survive in America as a single mother. The result is a defining novel for these turbulent times. I loved it and can’t stop thinking about it.”\u003cb\u003e—Joanna Rakoff, author of \u003ci\u003eMy Salinger Year\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“All the Mothers \u003c\/i\u003eis a wickedly funny, wildly entertaining, and deeply felt novel about motherhood, money, and making a happy home beyond the borders of convention. You won't be able to put this one down.”\u003cb\u003e—Leigh Stein, author of \u003ci\u003eSelf Care\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Warm, funny, and absolutely right, \u003ci\u003eAll the Mothers\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel about my favorite kind of family: complicated. Domenica Ruta’s intimately-sketched characters are impressively messy, familiar, beguiling, formidable, maddening, heartbreaking, and life affirming . . . sometimes all in the same morning.”\u003cb\u003e—Laurie Frankel, author of \u003ci\u003eFamily Family\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A timely hymn to female friendship and platonic love, this spicy story about Baby Mamas becoming Alpha matriarchs was so funny, tender and necessary, I couldn’t put it down.”\u003cb\u003e—Courtney Maum, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Year of the Horses\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“At once wickedly funny and delightfully warm, \u003ci\u003eAll the Mothers\u003c\/i\u003e beautifully captures the struggles and—more crucially—the myriad unexpected joys of raising children and creating community with the people who show up, whoever they may be. Domenica Ruta brings such much-needed joy and humor to the subject of motherhood that I want to press this book into the hands of every parent I know.” \u003cb\u003e—Jessie Gaynor, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Glow\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A funny, heartfelt meditation on the many definitions of family.”\u003cb\u003e—Swan Huntley, author of \u003ci\u003eI Want You More\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A perfectly charming and complex ode to mothers and found families . . . The real marvel is the beautifully drawn characters, who are realized with tremendous depth. Ruta skillfully sketches the complexities and struggles of single motherhood, especially as it relates to financial precarity and the importance of cultivating joy and community.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews, \u003c\/i\u003estarred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eDomenica Ruta\u003c\/b\u003e is the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of the memoir \u003ci\u003eWith or Without You\u003c\/i\u003e and the novel \u003ci\u003eLast Day, \u003c\/i\u003elauded one of 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2019 by the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e. Born and raised in Danvers, Massachusetts, she is a graduate of Oberlin College and holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. She currently teaches in the creative writing program at Sarah Lawrence College, and her writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The American Scholar, Oprah \u003c\/i\u003eonline, and many others. She currently lives in New York City with her family.\u003cb\u003eWearing nothing but ankle boots and a raggedy pair of panties, \u003c\/b\u003eSandy sits on the seat of a lidless toilet, holding the shield of a breast pump against her left boob, and searches social media for the other woman her baby’s father has a kid with. She is seething, and worried this anger will somehow seep into the milk and poison her daughter, who will grow up to be a mean girl who peaks in high school, but not worried enough to stop herself and calm down. Milk collects in a plastic jar one measly drop at a time. Her right boob leaks in sympathy with its left-side sister, dribbling down the soft rolls of Sandy’s stomach. The waste of those precious milliliters kills her, but only one hose of the breast pump is working right now and she keeps forgetting to buy a replacement. She keeps forgetting to wear front-opening clothes to work, which is why she is pumping half naked in the same bathroom her boss uses. Again. A hideous beige nursing bra hangs from a hook on the stall door. It is unlike anything she knew existed in her before life—with the heft and durability of camping equipment and coronas of milk stains highlighting how askew her nipples are. Next to it hangs the navy blue sack dress that seemed like such a great idea this morning. These days, no matter what choice she makes, it always seems to be wrong. She blames this on the other woman, a person her baby’s father has never mentioned, not once in over a year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is not the life I dreamed of when I was a little girl, Sandy thinks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe is hunting for this woman like an FBI agent in pursuit of a serial killer, thumbing through various accounts, tapping pictures, enlarging them, following tags in pursuit of other tags in pursuit of . . . what? What would she do if she found her?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer nipple is sucked in and out by the pretend mouth of the flange. It doesn’t hurt, which, no matter how many times she’s done this, is surprising, considering the intensity of the machine. It’s weirdly pleasant, actually. Not pleasurable, but . . . nice? Is that gross? Am I gross? Sandy wonders this for half a second. An ironic gift of single motherhood: she doesn’t have time to feel shame.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the floor, the breast pump squawks in a pattern that is starting to sound like words.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wacko-wacko-you’re-a-wacko. Wacko-wacko-you’re-a-wacko.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe hasn’t slept more than ninety continuous minutes in months. Even when her baby sleeps a long-ish stretch, maybe two or three hours, Sandy’s brain jolts her awake every few minutes, as if to alert her to the fact that she is alone in the deep dark forest. But she’s not. She’s alone in New York City. Alone with a baby.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePump breaks at work have become her little treat. Three times a day she can microdose the paid time off that her job doesn’t actually offer. It is the only time all week she gets to zone out. She used to watch reruns of her comfort show on her phone. In twenty-minute increments, three times a day, she could lose herself in small-town Texas, where an extremely hot high school football coach offers unconditional love to the also extremely hot, adults-playing-teenagers on his team, a town where not even paraplegia and attempted rape are all that bad in the long run. If traveling to this world means hanging a humiliating pumping sign on the office bathroom door, it’s worth it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow Sandy scours the internet instead, looking for her. She examines pictures of women with nose rings and tattoos who look like they’ve never given birth, their waists doll-sized, their eyes glimmering with adequate rest. Other women show their children off proudly, and Sandy scans their faces for any resemblance to her daughter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe enlarges an image with her fingers, her once well-manicured nails now bitten down to the quick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s her! I found her!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnline stalking gives the same dopamine high and crash of a video game. The woman in this post is so unbelievably sexy. She has Bettie Page bangs and huge breasts, much bigger than Sandy’s, which have failed to fill a B-cup even while lactating. She taps deeper into the world of this woman, clicking, enlarging, until: no, that’s not her kid, it’s her niece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt goes like this the whole break. She’s supposed to be modulating the speed of the breast pump to mimic the natural sucking rhythm of a real baby, but she ignores it, leaving the machine on full blast. Her eyes are so tired she can feel them discretely inside her lids as she strains to absorb every detail of these digital women. Her sockets are dry from lack of sleep, burning with the pressure of imminent tears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDon’t cry. Not at work. A jagged rock flames in her throat, in her nose. Stay focused. She’s here somewhere. Just find her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEverything is so swollen and cracked with hurt right now, and it’s all this woman’s fault. It has to be. Otherwise it’s Sandy’s fault, and then the hurt might never go away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally, she sees it: a profile for atSOSanto. In the grid are pictures of graffiti murals and flowering trees and liberal political memes. Pretentious. Annoying. Sandy primes herself for a world of hate. No friends tagged, no people at all, until in the tenth row a short, curvy brunette holding the hand of a toddler with gleaming coppery hair. The woman is facing the ocean, her back to the camera. The child peeks over her shoulder, an oddly familiar smirk on her face, as though spying right back at Sandy, clocking her as the interloper she is. Even cast in shadow, the child’s eyes are a startling blue. The same blue as Sandy’s baby. In all her anger, Sandy had forgotten the other half of the other woman—the kid, her daughter’s sibling. The hatred she can’t let go of starts to melt away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe dives deep. SOSanto doesn’t post often, almost never posts pictures of herself, and this half glimpse of the child is the only one in the grid. There’s not enough evidence to spin out a fantasy, as much as Sandy wants just that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pump break is almost over. Her right hand cramps from balancing her phone and scrolling. She switches the shield of the pump to the other side, her left boob loose with relief, her nipple raw and a little sore. With her left thumb now, she continues tapping each picture, methodically scanning the captions and comments for intel. One day she will have to explain to a surgeon how she gave herself carpal tunnel syndrome from internet-stalking on the toilet. She’ll worry about it then. Right now she’s so close.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe adjusts the placement of the breast shield, then, with her cramping hand, Sandy makes a major tactical error: she accidentally hits “follow.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Oh god no.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStupidly, instinctually, she un-follows, knowing it will all be in SOSanto’s notifications regardless. She shuts off her phone. Which accomplishes . . . nothing. Beads of sweat prickle at her temples. There is no way to win this game now. She looks at the bottle hanging off her boob. It measures a dispiriting 1.75 milliliters of milk, including bubbles. So actually more like 1.5 milliliters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wacko-wacko-you’re-a-wacko . . .” whines the breast pump.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No one asked you,” Sandy fires back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe snaps off the machine, turns her phone back on and rests it on top of the toilet paper dispenser, rubs greasy lanolin on her nipples, starts to get dressed. What are the encouraging words I would like a friend to give me right now? she asks herself with forced cheer. If only a real friend were there to help, someone with the steadiness of an emotional EMT. None of the women she considers friends would understand what she is going through. They’d proven that to her already. An imaginary BFF will have to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTake a deep breath. Whoever she is might not check her notifications. She might not even notice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer phone chirps. The DM chirp. Still inching the zipper up the back of her dress, Sandy jumps at the sound. She grabs her phone, hands shaking, and it slips from her greasy fingers like a wet bar of soap, sailing toward the toilet bowl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe dives into the toilet, catching the phone a second before it hits the water, feeling every bit as heroic as a football player in small-town Texas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA direct message from SOSanto is waiting for her:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hi. Are you his new girlfriend?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSandy’s heart is beating in her hands, her stomach, her feet, everywhere except her chest. She feels dizzy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m honestly not sure anymore,” she writes back. “But I am his co-parent. We have a daughter.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSandy holds her phone in her hands, breathless. A second later she gets a response.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Me, too.”New York Times bestselling author of With or Without You","brand":"Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301336699109,"sku":"NP9780593734056","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593734056.jpg?v=1767721303","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/all-the-mothers-isbn-9780593734056","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}