There are two pulsing questions at the heart of Spanish journalist Begoña Gómez Urzaiz's The Abandoners: On Mothers and Monsters. Why did women such as Muriel Spark, Mercè Rodoreda, Ingrid Bergman, and Joni Mitchell leave their young children behind? And why do their stories ignite such violent emotional reactions?
In the opening chapter, Gómez Urzaiz delineates the cultural phenomenon. For mothers who abandon children, condemnation is swift, vicious, and widespread. It far exceeds that faced by fathers who do the same. While such fraught situations have no easy answers, Gómez Urzaiz deftly provides examples from history and fiction as she digs into this messy topic.
In 1939, Spark separated from her husband and left her four-year-old son, Robin, at a convent in Zimbabwe, then set off for Edinburgh, Scotland, to pursue writing as a career. When Gómez Urzaiz encountered this aspect of Spark's history, she was caring for two young sons while desperately trying to carve out time to write. The tapestry she weaves by placing the details of Spark's situation alongside her own struggle with the mundanity of parenting is entertaining and enlightening.
Gómez Urzaiz tells each account of abandonment, including Rodoreda leaving her only son behind when she went into exile and Mitchell placing her infant daughter for adoption, with nuance and compassion. That her book is such a gripping read reflects the intensity of the cultural snarl created by gendered expectations of parenting. The Abandoners is an essential exploration of motherhood and feminism. --Carol Caley, writer