Baby boom

>> Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me is a comedy of manners and matters

by JULIET WATERS

Brooke, narrator of Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me and new mother of Stella, can't figure out why bars aren't more filled with mothers. "I drank quite a bit after Stella was born. Did then, do now. No one can use a drink as much as a new mother. Why the world is full of men drinking in bars is a mystery to me. What do men have to worry about? Money, manhood, the play-offs. The same basic things that bug them at 14 bug them at 84... But there you are, mother. For reasons having to do with selfishness and the cruel march of DNA, you have brought forth an innocent who will suffer and die, not to mention figure out that love fades, money can buy happiness after all, and diets don't work."

You could say that Karen Karbo's novel is a hip satire of motherhood, but that would ignore that it's as much a satire of hipness as motherhood. The truths Karbo points out about motherhood--the frustration, the drudgery, the trapped feeling--make "hip mama" pretty much an oxymoron. Karbo's bitter humour is best revealed when she scoffs at the line, "A man's got to do what a man's got to do": "Didn't Gary Cooper say that in High Noon? I hope not, for his sake. I hope it was some bit player who dies of his own stupidity. For it has never been men who have to do what they have to do, but mothers."

This is the story of Brooke and her friend, Mary Rose, an Amazonian landscaper, the "last living Valkyrie." Mary Rose is pregnant and in love with TV-commercial director, Ward Baron. Gorgeous, full of shit, "his best qualities are visible at 100 paces," Ward wears T-shirts that read "Why grow up when you can make movies?"

Brooke is, or was, a successful independent filmmaker, until she met and married Lyle, who she believed was a sexy artist living in a cool loft. In fact, Lyle was a passive-aggressive photocopier repair man living off the settlement from a car accident. By the time Brooke discovered this, she was already five weeks pregnant. Lyle is not much help as a father, but he rationalizes this by convincing himself that Brooke had a one-night stand with an NBA star five weeks after Stella was born. To anyone who's ever had a child, the thought--let alone the act--of sex this early is absurd. But angry, disappointed Brooke plays along just to spite him.

Ward, also, is no candidate for World's Greatest Dad. On the surface he is almost obsessively involved with Mary Rose's pregnancy. But when Mary Rose dumps him after discovering that he's still married to the wife he claimed to be separated from, Ward reacts by suing her for custody.

One of the many things that makes Motherhood ring true is that the friendship between Mary Rose and Brooke is not a deep one. They are together mostly through the "Motherhood," a term that implies being part of a neighbourhood of hellish issues, which throws women together like a never-ending season of Survivor. Just as Brooke envies Mary Rose's strength and independence, she also can't help judging what she believes is Mary Rose's naïveté. Alienating the jerk-off father of one's child might seem like a fine idea when you're pregnant, but Brooke believes that even two people aren't enough to raise a child. It probably takes closer to four adults, or at least four of the almost-adults who populate this book.

Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me is a comedy of manners, so everything kind of miraculously works out in the end. But with procreation being one of the most fundamental and complex human activities, it's also a comedy of matters, which lends it depth as well as humour.

Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me, by Karen Karbo, Bloomsbury, hc, 213pp, $36.95