In A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother, published in 2001, Rachel Cusk depicted the “psychical events” of childbirth and early motherhood, with all its ambivalence and pressure.[16] The fallout from the book was significant. Cusk was vilified. In an article written years afterwards for the Guardian, entitled “I was only being honest,” she defends herself and critiques the damning reviews of the book. “I was accused of child-hating, of postnatal depression, of shameless greed, of irresponsibility, of pretentiousness, of selfishness, of doom-mongering and, most often, of being too intellectual,”
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