{"product_id":"eleven-hours-isbn-9781941040294","title":"Eleven Hours","description":"\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn NPR Best Book of 2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e Book We Loved in 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cb\u003eNamed to \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e' Best Books of 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cb\u003eFlavorwire Most Anticipated Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the critically acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eThe Virgins, Eleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e is an intimate exploration of the physical and mental challenges of childbirth, told with unremitting suspense and astonishing beauty.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLore arrives at the hospital alone—no husband, no partner, no friends. Her birth plan is explicit: she wants no fetal monitor, no IV, no epidural. Franckline, a nurse in the maternity ward—herself on the verge of showing—is patient with the young woman. She knows what it’s like to worry that something might go wrong, and she understands the distress when it does. She knows as well as anyone the severe challenge of childbirth, what it does to the mind and the body.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of two soon-to-be mothers who, in the midst of a difficult labor, are forced to reckon with their pasts and re-create their futures. Lore must disentangle herself from a love triangle; Franckline must move beyond past traumas to accept the life that’s waiting for her. Pamela Erens moves seamlessly between their begrudging partnership and the memories evoked by so intense an experience: for Lore, of the father of her child and her former best friend; for Franckline, of the family in Haiti from which she’s exiled. At turns urgent and lyrical, Erens’s novel is a visceral portrait of childbirth, and a vivid rendering of the way we approach motherhood—with fear and joy, anguish and awe.\u003cb\u003eErens . . . [creates] one of the most realistic and harrowing portrayals of birth you are likely to encounter in fiction.\u003c\/b\u003e She has also written an indelible portrait of two women coming to terms with desire, fear, crushing losses and fragile joys that have carved their lives, and who knows what it means to fight every hour, every minute, to take another breath.\n—New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eExhilarating novel . . .The writing is candid without being sensational, detailed without being clinical.\u003c\/b\u003e This admirable novel reminds us that even when childbirth is overseen by caring professionals in state-of-the-art facilities, it still arrives on waves of blood.\n—Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI loved \u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e In this gorgeous, haunting, slender novel, Pamela Erens creates an intimacy that is all-encompassing.\n—Roxane Gay, author of BAD FEMINIST\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePamela Erens achieves the extraordinary in her third novel, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/b\u003e:\u003c\/i\u003e a visceral story about an intensely painful experience that manages to be an intense pleasure to read.\n—Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChildbirth, this uniquely female form of heroism, is rarely documented in our literature, and I’ve never seen it rendered with the extraordinary insight, urgency, and potency of \u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e. Every dilation and contraction of feeling is recorded, and \u003cb\u003eErens evokes the layered experience of living in a body— its tides of memory, sensation, and emotion—like no other writer I know\u003c\/b\u003e.\n—Karen Russell, author of VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eQuietly, without the fanfare she is due, \u003cb\u003ePamela Erens has become one of the finest novelists of the twenty-first century\u003c\/b\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e is another confirmation.\n—Kyle Minor, author of PRAYING DRUNK\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith exhilarating speed the wonderful Pamela Erens describes the stories of two women as one gives birth to her first child and the other tries to contain her fears around motherhood. Miraculously, in these few beautiful pages, we learn everything we need to know about these characters and their lives. \u003cb\u003eA brilliantly suspenseful and moving novel.\u003c\/b\u003e\n—Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e Powerful—aesthetically and viscerally.\u003c\/b\u003e\n—Kirkus, STARRED\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten with incredible clarity, the third novel from Erens (\u003ci\u003eThe Virgins\u003c\/i\u003e) is a wonder, shifting between two protagonists with ease to tell a deeply personal narrative of childbirth, complete with tension, horror, and deep mature emotion. This novel does not sentimentalize the delivery of a child, but rather examines the surprise -- mental and physical -- that accompanies it. \u003cb\u003eLabor stories are as old as time, but Erens's novel feels incredibly fresh and vivid. An outstanding accomplishment.\u003c\/b\u003e\n—Publishers Weekly, STARRED \u0026amp; Pick of the Week\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe book is fierce and vivid in its depiction of the exhaustion of the spirit and the rending of the flesh during childbirth. So much so, that it makes that boy adventure aboard Herman Melville's Pequod almost seem like a Carnival cruise. . . \u003cb\u003eErens never flinches here and in this incisive novel about birth, she bears witness to its beauty and brutality.\u003c\/b\u003e\n—NPR Fresh Air\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis \u003cb\u003evisceral and empathetic novel\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eupends conventional notions of motherhood\u003c\/b\u003e while reminding us of its universal mystery.\n—Signature Reads, Best Books of the Year\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Erens] transforms the commonplace into the captivating . . . \u003cb\u003eNowhere have I read a more delightfully stomach-churning account of the indecencies, the invasiveness and the violence of bringing life into the world\u003c\/b\u003e.\n—The Guardian\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eErens’ vivid, unflinching portrayal of childbirth . . . read so powerfully,\u003c\/b\u003e and offer something so infrequently depicted in literature . . .\n—Huffington Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat if, instead of making tender youths watch “The Miracle of Life” in health class, risking numerous teenagers passing out on the linoleum, we regularly exposed them to honest narratives about the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth? . . . [\u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e] portrays childbirth with a clear-eyed simplicity that is both poetic and very educational.\n—Huffington Post, \"13 Illuminating Books That Should Be Required Reading\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eErens is such a gifted writer\u003c\/b\u003e that in this slender novel she is able to magically transform the experience of two women – one a mother in labor, the other a nurse – into urgent, suspenseful drama. From the first sentence – ''No, the girl says, she will not wear the fetal monitoring belt'' – Erens seizes control of her \u003cb\u003eintense, provocative and deeply rewarding high-wire act of a novel.\u003c\/b\u003e\n—National Review, Five Hot Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is \u003cb\u003ean immensely powerful, cannot-look-away novel\u003c\/b\u003e of heart and bone and muscle and blood. The war novel has a rival, and it is breathtaking.\n—Herald Scotland\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eErens describes this pain so honestly that its rawness is breathtaking. . . . \u003cb\u003eBrilliantly evocative\u003c\/b\u003e.\n—Rain Taxi\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eErens makes a fresh contribution.\u003c\/b\u003e Along with creating original and nuanced characters, she pits duality against intense isolation. . . \n—The Millions\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePamela Erens has given us a dream that becomes a nightmare and is restored again to dream, a vital, microcosmic, fundamental, riveting, distilled illumination of our most profound and misunderstood passage, the rite at which every reader can marvel: someone once did that for me. \u003cb\u003eAs essential a novel as they come. \u003c\/b\u003e\n—Elisa Albert, author of AFTERBIRTH\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDeeply moving and radiantly written, \u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e is a gorgeous, harrowing, and intensely urgent novel.\u003c\/b\u003e Pamela Erens is a mesmerizingly smart and powerful writer—I can't stop thinking about this book.\n—Molly Antopol, author of THE UNAMERICANS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWith \u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e Pamela Erens solidifies her standing as one of the most gifted fiction writers we have\u003c\/b\u003e. This exploration of a woman’s time in labor is at once gritty and graceful, harrowing and compassionate. It is no small challenge to make a subject as old as life itself feel newly observed and newly revelatory, but Erens does exactly that and more. Bravo!\n—Robin Black, author of LIFE DRAWING\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e is a taut, spare, and gorgeous, a slow beautiful spinning of tension and story that embraces two women whose lives interlock at the moment in which life enters the world: birth. \u003cb\u003ePamela Erens's prose manages to be both meditative and urgent.\u003c\/b\u003e\n—Roxana Robinson, author of SPARTA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI could. not. put this one down. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nErens' story is so tightly packed, so fluid, I couldn't stop chasing the next word, the next sentence, through to the end.I don't have children and I don''t plan to; it's not for me. And still, even unexpectedly, \u003ci\u003eEleven Hours \u003c\/i\u003ereally resonated with me. It's a welcome addition to the too-tiny pool of pregnancy \u0026amp; childbirth-themed literature, though echoes into so much more than that as well.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nAs Lore works and struggles through labor, every detail of which I felt I could touch with both hands, she also navigates human connection--how the are made, held, broken. And as Franckline, her nurse\/midwife, travels through this alongside Lore, the connections and bonds between women, the temporary one between these two women--are lovingly knit, inspected, defined. \u003ci\u003eEleven Hours\u003c\/i\u003e is like a lullaby, speaking often of tragedy but in the gentle, rocking tune of a mother's voice. \u003cb\u003eThis is another one from Tin House that I will be keeping tucked in near my heart.\u003c\/b\u003e\n—Finch Alder Hogue, Vintage Books\u003cb\u003ePamela Erens\u003c\/b\u003e's second novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Virgins\u003c\/i\u003e, was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Review Editor’s Choice and was named a Best Book of 2013 by the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNew Republic\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, and Salon. The novel was a finalist for the John Gardner Book Award for the best book of fiction published in 2013. Pamela’s debut novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Understory\u003c\/i\u003e, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in publications such as \u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, and the Millions.","brand":"Tin House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233141731557,"sku":"NP9781941040294","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781941040294.jpg?v=1767726147","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/eleven-hours-isbn-9781941040294","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}