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You are here: Home / Culture / Books / CHOUETTE challenges our assumptions of parenthood – with owl babies

CHOUETTE challenges our assumptions of parenthood – with owl babies

November 17, 2021 Category: Books, Reviews
Claire Oshetsky, Chouette - credit Ellen Zensen
Claire Oshetsky - credit Ellen Zensen
Chouette - Claire Oshetsky
Chouette – Claire Oshetsky

Reminiscent of Ian McEwan’s Nutshell, Tiny, whose unconventional upbringing we come to learn as Claire Oshetsky’s Chouette progresses, knows she’s about to give birth to an owl-baby. Tiny, though, is an unreliable narrator, either because she’s suffering from pregnancy anxiety and post-partum depression, or because we simply don’t trust women, pregnant or otherwise, to be reliable.

RELATED: ‘Jan Morris- writer, traveller, first-hand witness to history, and all-around global citizen – reflects on a lifetime of meaning in Allegorizings.’

The baby is born and is, yes, an owl-baby: long fingers, barely any sort of nose, and sharp claws and teeth. She’s covered in downy hair and has tufted ears. Everyone but Tiny supposes she will die within days, if not hours; the mother embarks on raising Chouette as best she can while her husband searches for some sort of medical fix. Differing opinions on how to raise an owl-baby are impossible to reconcile, and tensions grow steadily between the couple.

Chouette questions the assumption that parenthood requires accepting the child you give birth to, and of mothers’ superior adeptness at embracing the unexpected from their children (as opposed to men seeing the world as a place they can fix to suit their needs). Owl-babies being what they are, if you might have trouble reading descriptions of many small animals being eaten, you may want to look for a different opportunity to understand families via the process of seeing the real in the surreal.

Chouette, Claire Oshetsky (Virago)

Price: £14.99. Info: here

words BILLIE INGRAM SOFOKLEOUS

KEEP READING: ‘Renowned naturalist Jane Goodall admits that “we are going through hard times,” but The Book of Hope invites us to do just that.’

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About Noel Gardner

Noel is the listings, reviews, music and books editor at Buzz and has been doing some or all of these things here since the days of dial-up internet. He was raised in Cornwall, lives in Cardiff and that is more or less all he has ever known.
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Tag: billie ingram sofokleous, buzz book review, claire oshetsky, Ellen Zensen

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