"Thirty acclaimed writers share their personal birth stories--the extraordinary, the ordinary, the terrifying, the sublime, the profane It's an elemental, almost animalistic urge--the expectant
mother's hunger for birth narratives. Bookstores are filledwith month-by-month pregnancy manuals, but the shelves are virtually empty of artful, entertaining, unvarnished accounts of labor and
delivery--the stories that new mothers need most. Here is a book that transcends the limits of how-to guides and honorsthe act of childbirth in the twenty-first century. Eleanor Henderson and
Anna Solomon have gathered true birth stories by women who have made self-expression their business, including Cheryl Strayed, Julia Glass, Lauren Groff, Dani Shapiro, and many other
luminaries. In Labor Day, you'll read about women determined to give birth naturally and others begging for epidurals; women who pushed for hours and women whose labors were over practically
before they'd started; women giving birth to twins and to ten-pound babies. These women give birth in the hospital, at home, in bathtubs, and, yes, even in the car. Some revel in labor, some
fear labor, some feel defeated by labor, some are fulfilled by it--and all are amazed by it. You will laugh, weep, squirm, perhaps groan in recognition, and undoubtedly gasp with surprise. And
then you'll call every mother or mother-to-be that you know and say "You MUST read Labor Day.""--
