Birth to Beauty to Death to Back
Ramona Ausubel’s “A Guide to Being Born“
Ramona Ausubel’s A Guide to Being Born is, among so many things, absolutely true to its cover. The image, compelling strange, hippie consists of a collage anatomical diagrams of the heart, a large egg growing like an infant inside a woman, surrounded by a menagerie of flowers, the lady’s hands pointed as if harnessing the power of her chakras and inborn strength. Basically, everything you’ll feel from reading each of these stories.
My experience with this book? I first heard about it from my Nylon magazine, saw this cover and read the short little blurb calling it beautiful among other things and knew I needed to have it. I FINALLY got it about a month ago, treating it with the care I reserve for my favorite books, ones given as gifts or borrowed from friends – never shoving it into a purse, never juggling coffee and its exposed pages at the same time, never reading it with wet hair. I’d begun treating this book like sacred text even before reading a full page.
Was it worth the hype? Hell yes.
It reads as though Ausubel has the power to create fiction the way a flower has power to create pollen – natural, inborn, lovely. It’s unfair to say that, though, as I’m sure she sweated over the text, finding the precise word to describe the situation, testing out the true adjective needed to finish the sentence. Still – for an author with so little under her belt at this point (her only published books are this and 2012’s No One Is Here Except All of Us, which I MUST read immediately), it’s incredible the way she reads as if she’s been doing this like the big dogs (Murakami, GGMarquez), honing it down to a beautiful yet natural equation.
What are these stories about? In order, according to the author, Birth, Gestation, Conception, Love. A reversal of the cycle of life. That’s simplifying it to the point of an insult, though; these are stories about passion, care, meticulousness, prayer, death, compassion, buttons, stitches. Details down to the small little pinky nail growing on a newborn, fleshy, soft and vulnerable.
A few standouts from the mix:
- “Safe Passage.” The tale of a collection of grandmothers aboard a boat. They’ve no idea how they got here or where the boat is going. Some cry, thinking this is the boat that leads to death. Some mourn the grandchildren they’ll never see walk, the things they’ll never be able to tell their daughters. Others, though, rejoice in the things still to find on the ship, like boxes of yellow roses, tales from the other women, care in the form of a wrinkled hand.
- “Chest of Drawers.” Exactly as it sounds. Most men gain sympathy weight with their pregnant wives; Ben gained a chest of drawers. Little, hurt-free drawers on his stomach that would fall open, exposing the insides, perfect size for carrying around miniature baby dolls. The couple drills half-moons into the tops, making them simple to open and close.
- “Atria.” In the same frame of days that Hazel loses her virginity to a young boy she’s believes herself in love with, the girl is raped behind the church. There’s an animal growing in her now, one teachers, school children and her mother ponder over the gender of. Hazel can’t imagine what’s growing inside of her – possible a rabbit, a wolf, a giraffe with its neck curled up tight?
- “Catch and Release.” The story of a little girl named Buck, named by her father for what she was worth, her mother, grandmother and the general she meets. Helping the old man reenact his wars with sticks and imagination, it’s unclear just how Buck’s playful violence helps the man reach reality.
I can’t tell you enough how beautiful not just these, but every single story in this collection is. I can’t even begin to explain the world of magic, reality and motherhood Ausubel’s created in this small space of pages. I can tell you though, if your imagination hasn’t been shut down at this point, if you’ve still the bone to appreciate beauty and the unreal, please read A Guide to Being Born and treat it with the care it deserves.
