Hillbilly Gothic

Adrienne Martini opens her memoir with a warning her family seems to have passed down for generations: mothers in her line lose their minds after giving birth, and she hoped she would be the exception. The book traces that inheritance through her own struggle with depression, which ended in a breakdown and a stay in an institution. Martini moves between past and present, and between the mountain communities of her ancestors in Appalachia and the Western Pennsylvania region where she grew up, showing how distance and isolation shaped the women who came before her. She also brings in other women, from earlier eras and from today, whose postpartum experiences ranged from brief baby blues to severe psychosis.

The subject is grave, but the writing is sharp and often funny, with wry observations about the strange demands of new motherhood. Readers who have had a hard time with parenthood, whether or not depression was part of it, will find a story about surviving a difficult family legacy, offering hope to others, and finding the nerve to try for another child.