Shadow Work Loneliness and the Literary Life

"Emily Hodgson Anderson is an English professor who specializes in eighteenth-century British literature. At the age of thirty-nine, she found herself as a newly single mother to two boys aged two and five. In the years that followed, she turned to the familiarity of literature to navigate the shift to single parenting, loneliness, and other changes in her personal life and the broader world. These essays illuminate how she drew on her favorite books to re-examine her own childhood, the experience of separation, and being a single mother. Anderson draws on her background and training as a critic and professor to explore the single mother's evolving approach to invisible labor or "shadow work." The books and authors Anderson considers are eclectic and joined in unexpected ways. She pairs Wordsworth and Cheaper by the Dozen to think about the efficiency required in single parenting; she turns to Samuel Beckett and Mary Shelley to explore the effort of feeling stuck and to Jane Austen to help her understand the implications of emotional reserve. Other writers discussed include Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Toni Morrison, Jacqueline Woodson, Brit Bennett, Rachel Cusk, Ralph Ellison, Percival Everett, and others. Thematically, these essays reflect on the work habits that mothers in our society are required to adopt, the way divorce causes one to return to childhood roots, the complications faced by mothers in mid-life dating, and the loneliness--and strength--that can come from living, writing, reading, and parenting alone. At its core, Anderson's book reflects on how we can reimagine intimacy through fiction, and a story about how a long-lasting relationship to literature can help readers better understand what we show and hide about ourselves"--