A BETTER WOMAN: A Memoir

Australian novelist Johnson covers an astonishing amount of territory in this seemingly simple story of new motherhood. Belonging to a generation of women who imagined themselves in complete control of their bodies and their lives, she writes, "My body was the vessel in which I sailed, and I never once imagined it capsizing." But capsize it did, and she articulates the ravages wreaked upon her person, marriage and life in a voice at once literate and excruciatingly intimate. Chronicling a tale of two pregnancies in quick succession in her late 30s (medically considered old for first-time mothers), a resulting rare complication of childbirth requiring several surgeries to repair, Johnson lays bare her broken body, sharp mind and alternately wounded and soaring heart. Admitting that she writes about things she has not dared to speak of even to close friends, she explains, "only in my writing am I free to express the unutterable." With a fresh economy of words, Johnson omits nothing, from the weary breach in her marital relationship to the all-consuming nature of new parenthood; from the financial woes of freelance writing to the assistance she receives from Australian maternal health centers that American mothers can only envy. She expertly weaves raw emotion and physical agony with insightful musings on being a woman, daughter, wife, mother and writer. Johnson provides an affecting memoir of loss and pain, strength and survival, fear and despair, love and joy. She successfully captures the unique season of her life that made her "a better woman," through both the living and the writing of it. Agent, Margaret Connolly. (Apr. 9)

Forecast:The simultaneous publication of Johnson's novel, Hungry Ghosts (Forecasts, Feb. 18), should keep the media's eye on this author; she's a perfect candidate for women's TV and online programs.