The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem
有小孩是女性創作者的錯嗎? 論創意、母職與育兒的種種問題
內容介紹
★此書有圖片權利與第三方需清文字權利的內容，取得版權的出版社需要自行決定是否要清權利或是捨棄不使用。
對母職與藝術之間關係深刻、挑釁和詼諧的探索——適合任何成為母親、想成為母親或曾經擁有母親的人。
一位偉大的藝術家或作家如果同時也是一位母親會是什麼樣的情況? 沒法在伍爾芙(Virginia Woolf)所說的「在自己的房間」創作，而是受限於居家空間與柴米油鹽醬醋茶。得獎傳記作家朱莉·菲力浦斯（Julie Phillips）在新書要帶讀者去探索這個很少人探討的主題。
朱莉·菲力浦斯懷著同理心帶著讀者回顧二十世紀傑出女性藝術家與作者因為家累所面對的心累。娥蘇拉·勒瑰恩(Ursula Le Guin)在家庭生活中仍懷有穩定的創作力，黑人女性詩人與作家奧德雷·洛德(Audre Lorde)的酷兒身份與女性主義立場讓她用她的方式撫養小孩。蘇珊·桑塔格(Susan Sontag)19歲成為母親，安潔拉·卡特(Angela Carter)是43歲高齡才生孩子。這些女性藝術家與作者有的只有一個孩子，有的有五個，甚至有七個孩子。她們常常得在廚房、車上、床上、桌上創作，同時還得照料一旁嬰兒車裡的寶寶。她們因為追求創作性的工作而被世俗批判。
據說諾貝爾文學獎得主多麗絲·萊辛(Doris Lessing)拋棄她的孩子，美國表現主義肖像畫家愛麗絲· 尼爾（Alice Neel）則是被夫家的親戚冤枉曾為了完成一幅畫作將她的寶寶放在紐約公寓外頭的逃生梯上，這也是這本書《有小孩是女性創作者的錯嗎? 論創意、母職與育兒的種種問題》原文書名The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem的由來，封面的畫作就是拿愛麗絲· 尼爾的作品。
朱莉·菲力浦斯將這些女性作家藝術家的生平拼貼在一起，她的論點是任何從事文字藝術創作的女性，常常得人神交戰面臨是否忽略小孩寶寶的需求遁入創作的靈感中。她們的創作與育兒的母職總是不停的在角力，她們得隨時檢視自己的兩種身份，一個是創作家一個是母親。不停的協商不停的想辦法解決各種問題，這些女性創作者的經歷肯定讓今日的職場女性非常有共鳴，除了在職場賺錢滿足成就感，有時還得自我懷疑是否沒當好一位母親……。
作者介紹
朱莉·菲力浦斯（Julie Phillips）是《小詹姆斯·提普奇：愛麗絲·B·謝爾頓的雙重生活》(James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon) 一書的作者，並獲得《美國書評人協會獎》（The National Book Critics Circle Awards）
朱莉·菲力浦斯是一位對性別和創造兩個主題著迷的傳記作家和評論家，曾為包括 4Columns、LitHub 和 The New Yorker 在內的許多出版物撰稿。曾榮獲懷汀基金會非文學類寫作獎(Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant)，她目前與伴侶和兩個孩子住在阿姆斯特丹。
書評
"[A] tremendous group biography... Phillips is an expert distiller. Instead of developing complete portraits of the artists and writers, she works to connect themes and ideas. She knows when to tread lightly and keep the expository writing tight; she pulls examples that illustrate her points... Her authority is built on knowledge and a mutually trusting relationship with the reader."
― Lauren LeBlanc, Los Angeles Times
"An expansive, absorbing survey... Phillips can’t resist a good story or a good quote, so her book brims with both... Although The Baby on the Fire Escape examines the particular challenges of gifted artists as they tried to balance the demands of creative work with the demands of motherhood, the book actually addresses a problem faced by all mothers: how to nurture both the child’s development and one’s own... Illuminating."
― Heller McAlpin, Wall Street Journal
"Wonderful.… Investigating motherhood as lived by an inspiring group of twentieth-century writers and artists, The Baby on the Fire Escape refutes all received ideas about creativity and absolute solitude. Julie Phillips examines the lives and work of artists from Gwendolyn Brooks to Louise Bourgeois, from Shirley Jackson to Susan Sontag, who refused to choose between intellectual rigor and motherhood, and finds it’s the courage to claim their own centrality that defines them as artists."
― Chris Kraus, author of After Kathy Acker and I Love Dick
"I devoured every word of The Baby on the Fire Escape, grateful for its penetrating insights about the idiosyncratic arrangements, logistical and psychological, devised by women artists who become mothers. Phillips’s compassionate, clearheaded, and lively book forwards our long, vexed cultural conversation about maternity and art. It made me resee my own life as a writer and parent."
― Pamela Erens, author of Eleven Hours and Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life
"Before I met Ursula K. Le Guin, I had no personal models for how a woman with children might also be a writer. What I did have was the children. Here, with her customary clarity, with empathy, nuance, and acuity, Julie Phillips questions some of our most admired artists about the ways in which the creativity required by motherhood and the creativity required by art have thwarted and supported them."
― Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
海外授權
簡體中文版權已售(北京三聯)、南韓(Dolgorae)
相關連結