When Will There Be Good News? (Jackson Brodie, #3)

by Kate Atkinson

Jackson himself had become a parent to Marlee, a condition that had left him torn and raw and completely at odds with his prenatal preoccupations, which had mainly revolved around choosing a pram—with the kind of masculine attention to specs that he would normally have afforded a car (lockable front swivel wheels? adjustable handle height? multiposition seat?). The mechanics of fatherhood turned out to be infinitely more primitive.

He was experiencing euphoria. It had never happened to him before, even at the happiest times in his life—when he was in love, when Marlee was born—any possibility of clear, uncut joy had been fogged by the anxiety.

Love is patient, love is kind, she reminded herself. But should she really be taking marital advice from a misogynist first-century Roman?

Reggie started walking because she wasn’t sure how Sadie, who had never been on a bus, would fare with all those trampling feet and shoving bodies. Reggie never fared well herself.

Louise remembered that odd fluttery feeling of having a freewheeling baby inside you, independent and dependent at the same time, an eternal maternal dialectic.

Louise supposed it was all that fucking that had made Howard Mason fashionable in—she checked the publication date—1960. Louise yawned. It was amazing how tedious reading about sex could be at this time of the day, any time of the day, in fact.

I deal with this by skipping the parts about sex.. too too boring