LEAVE: A POSTPARTUM ACCOUNT - Shayne Terry
ABOUT THE BOOK
Shayne Terry’s fourth trimester is not going as planned. Instead of bonding with her new baby, she’s stuck on the couch with a third-degree tear, barely able to walk. When the women in her family show up to help, they come bearing family secrets and old wounds that also need repair. Begun as notes on Terry’s phone documenting a parental leave gone awry, Leave examines a healing process complicated by capitalism, intergenerational trauma, and a healthcare system with a long history of devaluing women. This powerful postpartum account treats birth as a portal, one that can connect us to a lineage of pain, joy, death, and life. And at a time when our bodily autonomy is being stripped away, Leave is an urgent exploration of one woman’s experience recovering from birth in America.
PRAISE FOR LEAVE
"Leave stitches together, fragment by fragment, a reconstruction of all the ways a woman can be in pain, and all the ways a woman can pay a price, from birthing to living to dying. Shayne Terry offers herself as the reader’s doula, artfully guiding us through the complex tradition of maternal injuries that run through her family line, leaving no stone unturned in her search for truth. Through intimate vignettes, and rippling with astute intergenerational insights, Terry examines injuries that split through the core. Finally, someone asks on behalf of all women: what is normal when it comes to pain?"
—Lexi Kent-Monning, author of The Burden of Joy
"Leave asserts the power of writing, of the maternal body, and of women's voices when we say what has happened to us. It is in itself a kind of suture, a gesture toward repair. As a writer and a mother, I am so grateful this book was written.”
—Sue Rainsford, author of Follow Me to Ground and Redder Days
"I didn’t know how much I needed Leave: A Postpartum Account by Shayne Terry, and I bet you need it too. With poetic concision and linguistic daring, Terry pulls back the veil on the American pregnancy industrial complex and all of its erasures, difficulties, and joys. When Terry suffers a traumatic pregnancy and is literally torn from vagina to anus, she struggles to heal, care for her child and herself, and to navigate a world which diminishes women’s pain and suffering at every turn. The book is about healing and in reading it, I found myself revisiting my own traumatic birth story and healing myself. I’ve never read a book like this before. It’s a must for anyone with a body, struggling to right itself in these difficult times."
—Carley Moore, author of The Not Wives and Panpocalypse
“After I gave birth to my first child, I walked around in a daze thinking that birth is a trauma and it leaves a wound. Saturated in social media's carefully honed picture of motherhood, I felt like an absolute failure. I carry that shame with me now. But Shayne Terry's excellent LEAVE: A Postpartum Account exorcised that shame; it showed me a mirror inside of which I saw a friend. Terry is achingly human, generous, and forthcoming about her pain, about the generational patterns of motherhood and daughterhood in her own family, and of fighting for the re-welcoming of her self. I want to give this to every woman I know.”
— Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shayne Terry's work has appeared in American Chordata, Catapult, Chicago Review of Books, CRAFT, Electric Literature, TriQuarterly, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere. She has been selected for workshops and residencies at Bread Loaf, Tin House, and the Vermont Studio Center. Born and raised in northern Illinois, Shayne received an M.A. in Literature from University College Dublin and lives in Brooklyn. shayneterry.com
BOOK INFO
Pub Date: February 25, 2025
Print Length: 162 pages
Dimensions: 5 x 8 inches
ISBN: 978-1-957392-35-6
ABOUT THE BOOK
Shayne Terry’s fourth trimester is not going as planned. Instead of bonding with her new baby, she’s stuck on the couch with a third-degree tear, barely able to walk. When the women in her family show up to help, they come bearing family secrets and old wounds that also need repair. Begun as notes on Terry’s phone documenting a parental leave gone awry, Leave examines a healing process complicated by capitalism, intergenerational trauma, and a healthcare system with a long history of devaluing women. This powerful postpartum account treats birth as a portal, one that can connect us to a lineage of pain, joy, death, and life. And at a time when our bodily autonomy is being stripped away, Leave is an urgent exploration of one woman’s experience recovering from birth in America.
PRAISE FOR LEAVE
"Leave stitches together, fragment by fragment, a reconstruction of all the ways a woman can be in pain, and all the ways a woman can pay a price, from birthing to living to dying. Shayne Terry offers herself as the reader’s doula, artfully guiding us through the complex tradition of maternal injuries that run through her family line, leaving no stone unturned in her search for truth. Through intimate vignettes, and rippling with astute intergenerational insights, Terry examines injuries that split through the core. Finally, someone asks on behalf of all women: what is normal when it comes to pain?"
—Lexi Kent-Monning, author of The Burden of Joy
"Leave asserts the power of writing, of the maternal body, and of women's voices when we say what has happened to us. It is in itself a kind of suture, a gesture toward repair. As a writer and a mother, I am so grateful this book was written.”
—Sue Rainsford, author of Follow Me to Ground and Redder Days
"I didn’t know how much I needed Leave: A Postpartum Account by Shayne Terry, and I bet you need it too. With poetic concision and linguistic daring, Terry pulls back the veil on the American pregnancy industrial complex and all of its erasures, difficulties, and joys. When Terry suffers a traumatic pregnancy and is literally torn from vagina to anus, she struggles to heal, care for her child and herself, and to navigate a world which diminishes women’s pain and suffering at every turn. The book is about healing and in reading it, I found myself revisiting my own traumatic birth story and healing myself. I’ve never read a book like this before. It’s a must for anyone with a body, struggling to right itself in these difficult times."
—Carley Moore, author of The Not Wives and Panpocalypse
“After I gave birth to my first child, I walked around in a daze thinking that birth is a trauma and it leaves a wound. Saturated in social media's carefully honed picture of motherhood, I felt like an absolute failure. I carry that shame with me now. But Shayne Terry's excellent LEAVE: A Postpartum Account exorcised that shame; it showed me a mirror inside of which I saw a friend. Terry is achingly human, generous, and forthcoming about her pain, about the generational patterns of motherhood and daughterhood in her own family, and of fighting for the re-welcoming of her self. I want to give this to every woman I know.”
— Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shayne Terry's work has appeared in American Chordata, Catapult, Chicago Review of Books, CRAFT, Electric Literature, TriQuarterly, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere. She has been selected for workshops and residencies at Bread Loaf, Tin House, and the Vermont Studio Center. Born and raised in northern Illinois, Shayne received an M.A. in Literature from University College Dublin and lives in Brooklyn. shayneterry.com
BOOK INFO
Pub Date: February 25, 2025
Print Length: 162 pages
Dimensions: 5 x 8 inches
ISBN: 978-1-957392-35-6
ABOUT THE BOOK
Shayne Terry’s fourth trimester is not going as planned. Instead of bonding with her new baby, she’s stuck on the couch with a third-degree tear, barely able to walk. When the women in her family show up to help, they come bearing family secrets and old wounds that also need repair. Begun as notes on Terry’s phone documenting a parental leave gone awry, Leave examines a healing process complicated by capitalism, intergenerational trauma, and a healthcare system with a long history of devaluing women. This powerful postpartum account treats birth as a portal, one that can connect us to a lineage of pain, joy, death, and life. And at a time when our bodily autonomy is being stripped away, Leave is an urgent exploration of one woman’s experience recovering from birth in America.
PRAISE FOR LEAVE
"Leave stitches together, fragment by fragment, a reconstruction of all the ways a woman can be in pain, and all the ways a woman can pay a price, from birthing to living to dying. Shayne Terry offers herself as the reader’s doula, artfully guiding us through the complex tradition of maternal injuries that run through her family line, leaving no stone unturned in her search for truth. Through intimate vignettes, and rippling with astute intergenerational insights, Terry examines injuries that split through the core. Finally, someone asks on behalf of all women: what is normal when it comes to pain?"
—Lexi Kent-Monning, author of The Burden of Joy
"Leave asserts the power of writing, of the maternal body, and of women's voices when we say what has happened to us. It is in itself a kind of suture, a gesture toward repair. As a writer and a mother, I am so grateful this book was written.”
—Sue Rainsford, author of Follow Me to Ground and Redder Days
"I didn’t know how much I needed Leave: A Postpartum Account by Shayne Terry, and I bet you need it too. With poetic concision and linguistic daring, Terry pulls back the veil on the American pregnancy industrial complex and all of its erasures, difficulties, and joys. When Terry suffers a traumatic pregnancy and is literally torn from vagina to anus, she struggles to heal, care for her child and herself, and to navigate a world which diminishes women’s pain and suffering at every turn. The book is about healing and in reading it, I found myself revisiting my own traumatic birth story and healing myself. I’ve never read a book like this before. It’s a must for anyone with a body, struggling to right itself in these difficult times."
—Carley Moore, author of The Not Wives and Panpocalypse
“After I gave birth to my first child, I walked around in a daze thinking that birth is a trauma and it leaves a wound. Saturated in social media's carefully honed picture of motherhood, I felt like an absolute failure. I carry that shame with me now. But Shayne Terry's excellent LEAVE: A Postpartum Account exorcised that shame; it showed me a mirror inside of which I saw a friend. Terry is achingly human, generous, and forthcoming about her pain, about the generational patterns of motherhood and daughterhood in her own family, and of fighting for the re-welcoming of her self. I want to give this to every woman I know.”
— Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shayne Terry's work has appeared in American Chordata, Catapult, Chicago Review of Books, CRAFT, Electric Literature, TriQuarterly, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere. She has been selected for workshops and residencies at Bread Loaf, Tin House, and the Vermont Studio Center. Born and raised in northern Illinois, Shayne received an M.A. in Literature from University College Dublin and lives in Brooklyn. shayneterry.com
BOOK INFO
Pub Date: February 25, 2025
Print Length: 162 pages
Dimensions: 5 x 8 inches
ISBN: 978-1-957392-35-6