Writer Tackles Complex Topics in Debut Book: “Mothers And Other Fictional Characters”

“In my mothering, I am anything but a sacred Madonna. I am a determined shapeshifter, readjusting as I grapple my way through a role I must invent as I go,” writes Nicole Graev Lipson in her debut memoir-in-essays, “Mothers And Other Fictional Characters.”

The book asks some tough questions. As mothers, are we ever living our truth? Or are we just modeling our day-to-day off TV characters or other mothers believed to have the gig down because they’re masters at acting as if?

It also points out that society pits women against each other by constantly asking us to pick a side: Are you a frump or a MILF, a working mom or one who stays at home, a mother of one v. the mother of several, a single mom or one with a partner. Regardless, the über concept of motherhood always wins. Or does it?

According to the Best American essayist, National Magazine Award Nominee, Pushcart Prize Winner—and Upper East Side-raised Lipson: “It’s commonly said that being a mother ‘is the hardest job there is.’ On the surface, this would seem the ultimate compliment. But I’ve become suspicious of this type of praise, which—in a country that denies women paid maternal leave, all but ignores postpartum health, and offers no systematized childcare solutions—strikes me as inauthentic.”

In her own version of the speech that America Ferrera gives in the Barbie movie, the author adds, “There are endless itemizable reasons, when you’re a woman, why others might value you. Because you’re agreeable, smile easily, you’re pretty, have shiny hair, a nice ass. Know [how] to make your conversation partner feel fascinating. Because you’d make a good wife, good mother, good PTO volunteer.”

Lipson also brings in other voices, such as Maya Angelou, and more from her personal literary canon for a well-rounded view of womanhood.

Straus Media sat down with the writer and writing teacher to discuss the difference between the reality of being a mother and playing the role.

Why is your memoir a series of essays instead of a linear narrative? 
After the first three essays had been published in literary journals, I began to think in terms of a larger scope. There’s drama and tension in [the book], but not the kind you might find in a linear narrative where everything builds to one big revelatory moment. 


The book’s title. In what ways are mothers fictional, and who are these other characters?

In our culture, there is so much mythology around motherhood, so many messages we receive about what an ideal mother looks like. We absorb these narratives, and there is external and internal pressure to live up to sacrificing, putting children before ourselves, always being nurturing, leading from the heart, and so forth.

Once I became a mother, I realized how impossible these standards and expectations are.

The title is a nod to how the ideal mother is just one of the archetypes women are urged to step into during their lifespan, along with girlhood, maidenhood, and middle age.

You wrote: “Contemporary womanhood demands self-betrayal.” Please explain.

This is common in the realm of beauty and physical appearance. 


There are things we know intellectually; magazine covers are retouched and not realistic portrayals of what a woman looks like. We also know that spending an hour blow drying our hair and putting on makeup to present ourselves to the world as attractive isn’t a good use of time.

The self-betrayal comes when we succumb to the demands and expectations.

Women are taught to yield our bodies and give our consent when we might not really want to, and that’s another way we betray ourselves.

You write about pursuing a version of motherhood that runs counter to script. How does one go rogue?

The ideal is [for people] to say, “I know how I want to raise my own family and the type of environment I want my home to be.” But it’s hard because you’re not making decisions just for yourself. There is always the question of “If I don’t participate in the registration frenzy for...am I depriving my child an opportunity?”

You write that you’d like your children to see a day when motherhood, like a statue turned to flesh, is returned in its wholeness to the world. Can you expound on that?

I think there needs to be a greater recognition of the labor that goes into motherhood—how much thinking, mental work, and intellectual discipline mothering takes. How much goes into the care we give our children, intentional planning, thinking ahead, reasoning, trial and error, making a hypothesis, then observing how things play out and revising that hypothesis. To be appreciated in a deep holistic way, not a surface Mother’s Day way.

You write about the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship. Why does it have to be complex?

Adrienne Rich writes in her book “Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution” that there is no relationship basically as intimate, powerful, and ripe with richness as that of a mother and daughter. I think things that are powerful and rich in positive ways have the possibility of being powerful in negative, difficult, and tense ways as well.

The concept of women helping women? Real or myth people pay lip service to?

Female solidarity is so powerful and real. If we can find it and lean into it, it is the answer to all our problems. My example: A few other books are coming out about motherhood. [The other authors and I] now have a Zoom support group. It feels so good to champion their work and for them to champion mine. The power of female alliances is formidable.

Nicole Graev Lipson will be in conversation with author Joanna Rakoff (My Salinger Year) at P&T Knitwear, 180 Orchard St., March 12, at 6:30 pm. $5 admission redeemable towards book purchase.

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of 3 novels, most recently THE LAST SINGLE WOMAN IN NEW YORK CITY.