I could not concede that I was the problem” (114). Shortly thereafter, Blythe begs Fox to have another child: “I wanted another chance at motherhood. Blythe thinks she saw Violet’s leg extend to trip the boy but quickly pushes this thought out of her head. As he approaches Violet, he falls off the structure onto his head and is later pronounced dead. She watches as a boy runs across a bridge on a playground structure. Fox is unconcerned, believing that Violet is merely bored and acting out Blythe, on the other hand, says, “I can’t say I’m surprised” (94).Ībout a year later, Blythe is at the playground with Violet. When Violet is in preschool, her teacher tells Blythe and Fox that their daughter occasionally indulges in violent tendencies, twisting one classmate’s fingers until he cries and stabbing another in the thigh with a pencil. As Violet grows into a toddler, Blythe resents that the girl appears to love her father much more than her mother. In addition, Blythe begins writing again, and some days she puts on headphones and ignores Violet’s cries, letting her scream for up to two hours. However, Blythe also takes perverse enjoyment in making “decisions other mothers would not make because they weren’t supposed to” (42), like refusing to wipe off the top of a bottle after it falls on a dirty floor. Within a couple months, Violet starts sleeping more regularly, and the mother and daughter fall into a manageable routine. The only mother who looked down at her daughter and thought, Please. She writes, “I felt like the only mother in the world who wouldn’t survive it. For her first five days at home, Violet cries incessantly, causing sleeplessness and severe anxiety for Blythe.

In a difficult labor, Blythe gives birth to baby Violet. Nevertheless, Blythe agrees to have a child, largely because she hopes to end the cycle of maternal trauma in her family: “I wanted to be anyone other than the mother I came from. Blythe is more anxious about parenthood her neglectful mother, Cecilia, abandoned her when she was 11, and Cecilia’s mother, Etta, abused her daughter physically and emotionally. They soon marry, and Fox is eager to have a child.

After they graduate, Fox becomes a successful architect, and Blythe is a struggling writer. Fox now lives with his new partner, Gemma their toddler son, Jet and Violet, the teenage daughter of Blythe and Fox.īlythe narrates the idyllic early days of her relationship with Fox, whom she met in college. Most of the book’s chapters are presented as letters from Blythe to her estranged husband, Fox. This study guide refers to the 2021 edition published by Viking.

The push by ashley audrain