Oh, wow, get ready for Adrienne Gruber’s amazing conversation about her fourth book, which is also her first essay collection, MONSTERS, MARTYRS AND MARIONETTES: ESSAYS ABOUT MOTHERHOOD, and the numerous threads that connect it to Sarah Manguso’s memoir ONGOINGNESS: THE END OF A DIARY.
We talk about Gruber’s movement from poetry to prose, about the expansiveness of Manguso’s memoir, the lack of expansiveness in motherhood in general, how both books talk about the postpartum haze, how parenthood does wild things with the concept of linear time, the surrealness of Gruber’s pandemic pregnancy, the gift of knowing you want children, what kinds of experiences need to be lived before than can be imagined, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.
Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes is a revelatory collection of personal essays that subverts the stereotypes and transcends the platitudes of family life to examine motherhood with blistering insight.
Documenting the birth and early life of her three daughters, Adrienne Gruber shares what it really means to use one’s body to bring another life into the world and the lasting ramifications of that act on both parent and child. Each piece peers into the seemingly mundane to show us the mortal and emotional consequences of maternal bonds, placing experiences of “being a mom” within broader contexts—historical, literary, biological, and psychological—to speak to the ugly realities of parenthood often omitted from mainstream conversations.
Ultimately, these deeply moving, graceful essays force us to consider how close we are to death, even in the most average of moments, and how beauty is a necessary celebration amidst the chaos of being alive.
ADRIENNE GRUBER is an award-winning writer originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of five chapbooks, three books of poetry, including Q & A, Buoyancy Control, and This is the Nightmare, and the creative nonfiction collection, Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes: Essays on Motherhood. She won the 2015 Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron poetry contest, SubTerrain’s 2017 Lush Triumphant poetry contest, placed third in Event’s 2020 creative non-fiction contest, and was the runner up in SubTerrain’s 2023 creative non-fiction contest. Both her poetry and non-fiction has been longlisted for the CBC Literary Awards. In 2012, Mimic was awarded the bp Nichol Chapbook Award. Adrienne lives with her partner and their three daughters on Nex̱wlélex̱m (Bowen Island), B.C., the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.
Episode 9: Adrienne Gruber