Four Mothers

Four Mothers is an absorbing, moving, and beautifully composed exploration of motherhood and mothering across the world. Through her intimate and tenderly observed portraits of the lives and emotions of four different mothers, Abigail Leonard positions motherhood as a lens through which to examine profound questions around gender, identity, community, and care. A gripping, vital, and utterly compelling book – Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell WomenWith all the gifts of a novelist, reporter Abigail Leonard chronicles the lives of women around the world during their first year of motherhood, to make you feel their joy, their fear, their exhaustion, and their fierce love for their children. This is real motherhood on the page, bolstered by rigorous research to explain why our current systems have failed families and offer insights for a brighter future – Jo Piazza, author of HOW TO BE MARRIEDThe exquisitely reported and intensely readable story of how women from four corners of the world navigate early parenthood … Once I started Four Mothers I could not put it down – Darcy Lockman, author of All the RageFour Mothers shows how trials of modern parenting are complicated by so much more than gender norms, familial expectations, or individual finances. This deeply personal look at women worldwide grappling with the best and worst moments of their first year is eye-opening and cathartic. It is a love letter to parents and a clarion call for better policy – Eve Rodsky, author of Fair PlayI could not put this book down. Four Mothers is a masterfully reported work of narrative nonfiction, tracing the journeys of four remarkable women. Abigail Leonard deftly weaves together these astonishing stories of heartbreak, hope, sacrifice, and love. Grounded in deep research and reporting, she skillfully reveals the hidden forces and systems that shape modern motherhood. This book will make you step back and consider your own experiences of mothering and being mothered, how similar or different it all may have been in another place, at another time, in another body – Erika Hayasaki, author of Somewhere SistersBy turns piercing and poignant … This is an enthralling and kaleidoscopic view of modern motherhood * Publishers Weekly *

Abigail Leonard is an award-winning international reporter and news producer, currently based in Washington D.C. and before that in Tokyo, where she was a frequent contributor to NPR, Time magazine and New York Times video. Her stories have also appeared in the Washington Post, Newsweek and Vox. Before she moved to Japan, she wrote and produced long-form news documentaries as a staff producer for PBS, ABC and Al Jazeera America. Stories she reported have earned an Overseas Press Club Award, an Association of Health Care Journalists Award, a National Headliner Award, and a James Beard Foundation Media Award Nomination.