This essay collection is a tour de force of intelligence, wit, analytical prowess, and style—though it may prove overwhelming for some.
In five essays, Ives intricately weaves together a wide array of themes, blending personal
experience with cultural and historical insights. Known for her acclaimed works of fiction, poetry, and criticism—including Loudermilk and Life Is Everywhere—Ives employs her sharp intellect and vast knowledge in a series that stems from her experiences of pregnancy and childbirth at age 40.
The first essay, “Unicorns,” delves into the history of unicorn iconography and links it to her childhood attachment to a toy, crafting sentences such as, “The My Little Ponies seem to lack the sorts of mnemonic affordances (e.g., writing or social institutions) that would allow them to retain intergenerational memories, and, in any case, although baby My Little Ponies exist, the My Little Ponies appear to be immortal, unaffected by death”; “The unicorn, nickering behind bluish trees, is so natural, so much a part of what is natural, which is to say so much not a part of what is human, that it does not exist. It fades into the mist of a human fantasy about the natural world.”
In the title essay, Ives explores her ancestry, discovering an unexpected link to an essay she wrote in college and discussing her fascination with museum period rooms and the Assyrian genocide. “Earliness, or Romance” offers a unique critique of the “cursed” film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, while “The End” combines an alphabetical form with a record of a breakdown, featuring figures like Kafka, Richard Rorty, and Winona Ryder. In the final essay, “The Three-Body Problem,” Ives ties Liu Cixin’s sci-fi work to themes of pregnancy and childbirth.
This collection is a rich, complex, and thought-provoking display of erudition and style—though it might be overwhelming for some.
