The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone delves into the intricate and nuanced dance of familial love and communal ties through the lens of sociopolitical upheaval from the 1960s to the present day, examining which sacrifices are worth the price.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone, which is out now!
Seven Children. Five Mothers. One idyllic commune. What could go wrong?
Annabel Cooper wants to save the world. Her story begins in 1964 with her journey to Freedom Summer in Mississippi, where the disappearance of her first love ignites a lifelong fight for justice. Years later, she, her husband, and four other couples form a Boston political collective where they live together with their children in a rambling Boston house. As the era’s social upheaval intensifies, they move their children to a Vermont Eden, where they can remain safe from the world’s threats; their parents continue their political work, taking turns traveling to Vermont to care for the children.
But not all danger comes from the outside.
Annabel’s daughter, Ivy, yearns for normalcy, not the patchouli-soaked, natural-food-laden confines of Vermont. But mostly, she longs for Annabel’s attention-until a cataclysmic event alters the course of all their lives and she learns the limits of her many mothers and fathers.
EXCERPT
The Great Puddingstone Monogamy Debate of January 1966
Nobody missed a kitchen table house meeting without a hell of a reason—they were the lifeblood of our house, though sometimes the battle for consensus made me wish Guthrie and I lived in some clean, cozy little apartment on our own.
We argued everything from sharing cars to brands of wine to which political actions we’d support with the entire weight of our Puddingstone collective. Between posturing and polemic, unless the stars, moon, and sun aligned, we spent hours shouting over each other.
Only hospitalization emergencies justified skipping meetings, though nobody would miss this week’s summit—not with sex on the agenda. Week Four: The final round of the Great Puddingstone Monogamy Debate promised everything from sexual tension to raised voices, anger, and soul-searching deliberation.
We’d already chewed a million words about getting into each other’s beds. Guthrie and Diantha, in rare alliance, were on fire, cloaking their desire in rhetoric, taking turns as the chief-anti-monogamists-in-charge, expounding as they surreptitiously drank in Wyatt and Melanie, the golden couple of Puddingstone.
Guthrie’s desire for Melanie never surprised me—who wouldn’t want her? So sweet—certainly sweeter than me and her seeming pliancy, and girl-next-door beauty with a touch of sexiness, third trimester-pregnant or not, offered honey to the flies.
Wyatt knew he embodied Hollywood handsome, though despite being a god, kindness infused him.
“Freud considered monogamy as an oppressive sexual norm, a source of neurosis for both men and women,” Diantha said.
Melanie stroked her belly. “In 1915. By 1930, he said modernity couldn’t exist without monogamy.”
God save anyone who forgot Melanie’s Mensa-level brain.
Like all our men.
“Why bring another area of conflict into our arena?” Melanie cocked her head, exuding thoughtful openness. Suze, my alter-ego, pinched me under the table.
“What are you talking about?” Diantha frowned. “Do we have conflict in the arena—the bedroom—now?”
“Are you using the royal we?” Melanie tapped the side of her head. “Never mind. Pregnancy brain.” Her exhaustion showed. Arguments with Diantha lasted for soul-crushing hours.
“I agree with Mel. We have enough things to fight about in the house without adding sex,” I said.
Guthrie winked and then squeezed me around the shoulder. “Fight? We want to make love, not battle.”
“Not funny. Why put our relationships at risk?” As I spoke, I sketched a profile of quiet Quinn, his heavy brows set with the weight of the decision.
“Sleeping around is a lousy practice in a house with children.” Uber-mother Suze fiddled with her Oberlin ring. “And rife with complications.”
Guthrie rocked on the back legs of the kitchen chair. “Sexual liaisons occur in nearly all animals. Lions mate with as many as fifty females daily during mating season.”
“Someone has big dreams,” Chuck said.
“Southern night monkeys are thoroughly monogamous,” Suze said. “The male monkey watches his babies. The gray wolf mates and bonds with one partner at a time. So, which are you? The monkey, the lion, or the wolf?”
I tried not to laugh as I sketched a quick Suze drawing, adding masses of hair tumbling around her narrow face. Guthrie and Suze came armed with facts, numbers, and history for every meeting.
“The basic argument against monogamy is this: affairs are unavoidable.” Guthrie snapped a rock-hard whole wheat pretzel in half. “Men are evolutionarily wired to pass on as many genes as possible.”
Suze tilted her chin and aimed smoke rings at the ceiling. “More bullshit.”
“I take it you don’t agree.” Guthrie slammed his hands on the table. “Give me your point of view.”
“Sure.” Suze sliced a sliver of brownie from the pile on a blue glass plate. She ate morsel-by-morsel as though portions divided into twenty pieces never landed. “Theorizing on men’s genetic drive to spread their sperm is just another excuse for getting laid.”
Guthrie never backed down. “We’ll fend off jealousy by instituting cultural ways to manage our earthier desires. Fewer fights. Lower divorce rates.”
“Why stop there?” Suze asked. “More sex with more people can end famine! And war! Racism! And yet, Harvard men screw anything they can, yet women can’t enroll at your precious institution.”
Guthrie leaped up. “What kind of reasoning is that? You know—”
Suze held up her hands. “Don’t give me any Radcliffe crap. I’m tired of men using intellectual garbage to talk women into doing their bidding.”
Guthrie took a deep breath. “Have you considered discussing monogamy parameters might help the women in this room?”
Roxanne removed a pack of Marlboros from Quinn’s flannel shirt pocket—she’d never touch the pack of house cigarettes—unfiltered Camels. “No. Because your idea won’t push us an inch further and won’t get us into class with you. Want my point of view, Guthrie? We can agree to screw like monkeys in the jungle, but until it rains rubbers from heaven, Quinn and I are staying in our beds.”
I put down my pencil and raised my hands, palms out. “Whoa, we’re not deciding that folks must sleep with each other, are we?”
Laughter broke the tension, and we decided to vote. Monogamy officially lost at one in the morning, but the minority opinion (me, Suze, Roxanne, and Melanie) pushed so many codicils that jumping beds would require an act of God.
But our men held their deep maternal curiosity, forcing Melanie, a week later, at the next meeting, to announce that pregnancy made the idea of sex with anyone but Wyatt—and at this moment, even with him—unthinkable. “No, thank you,” she announced to all the men. “And please stop asking.”
Within a week, I’d politely refused Chuck, and Wyatt courteously turned away Diantha, who spun his rejection into a newfound belief against open sex. She took up the banner for purity, motherhood, and apple pie, but nobody was ready to start another debate to change the guidelines. Instead, switching partners burrowed underground, but it wasn’t forbidden—and, as in time memorial, an idea planted throws out sprouts. I worried that our only question was who, where, and how.
