Lifeform

The quirky humor of comedian Slate (Little Weirds) lights up these odd yet endearing essays, which trace her path to becoming a mother in the years after divorcing her first husband. Reflecting on the early days of dating her second husband, she recounts worrying whenever they were apart that he would lose interest in her, a feeling she gradually overcame through the strength of their connection. Two entries offer psychedelic accounts of her recurring dreams about a stork with “straw-like legs... strobing with filaments, threads of metallic light”; she interprets the creature’s often gruesome deaths as symbolizing her anxieties about becoming a mother. Other selections send-up postpartum life, as when Slate writes in a faux letter to her doctor that her breasts were “dripping like mutant grapes from outer space.” Another entry is styled as an obituary marking the death of Slate’s former self, featuring the headline, “Woman dies of going the extra mile.” Though Slate’s eccentric comedy is a constant, she’s not afraid to get heartfelt, as in the moving “Swan,” where she meditates on losing her grandmother to dementia while raising her baby: “There is no way for us to have our loves without breathtaking pain, not because we love brutally but because we lose each other at different times.” Funny, lyrical, and sometimes strange, these essays pulse with life. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME. (Oct.)