Newborn
Running Away, Breaking with the Past, Building a New Family
Published on 6. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-5299-3147-1 (ISBN)
Description
'I've just literally devoured Newborn and absolutely loved it' Giovanna Fletcher, Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast
The new memoir from Kerry Hudson about her struggle to build a safe, loving home for her baby - the very opposite of the home she grew up in...
'Absorbing' Irish Times
'Filled with colour' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun
'A rallying cry' Herald
How do you build a family without a blueprint to work from?
Kerry Hudson grew up in poverty. Always on the move, shuttled between the care system and her chaotic mother, she left school at 15 without qualifications. Now a prize-winning writer, she looks back and asks: how do you create a different life for yourself and your family?
In Newborn we see how Kerry found love, what it took to decide to start a family of her own and how fragile every step of the journey towards parenthood was. All along the way, she faces obstacles that would test the strongest foundations, from struggles with fertility to being locked down in a Prague maternity hospital to a marriage in crisis. But over and over again, her love, hope, fight - and determination to break patterns and give her son a different life - win through and light her path.
PRAISE FOR KERRY HUDSON:
'It's not just Kerry Hudson's writing that is vibrant, authentic and true, it's the person herself, it's where the writing comes from; a wise and generous heart' KIT DE WAAL
'Hudson's resilience, grace and humility are staggering. She's an absolute inspiration' DOUGLAS STUART
'Kerry Hudson blew me away, opened my eyes' PHILIPPA PERRY
The new memoir from Kerry Hudson about her struggle to build a safe, loving home for her baby - the very opposite of the home she grew up in...
'Absorbing' Irish Times
'Filled with colour' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun
'A rallying cry' Herald
How do you build a family without a blueprint to work from?
Kerry Hudson grew up in poverty. Always on the move, shuttled between the care system and her chaotic mother, she left school at 15 without qualifications. Now a prize-winning writer, she looks back and asks: how do you create a different life for yourself and your family?
In Newborn we see how Kerry found love, what it took to decide to start a family of her own and how fragile every step of the journey towards parenthood was. All along the way, she faces obstacles that would test the strongest foundations, from struggles with fertility to being locked down in a Prague maternity hospital to a marriage in crisis. But over and over again, her love, hope, fight - and determination to break patterns and give her son a different life - win through and light her path.
PRAISE FOR KERRY HUDSON:
'It's not just Kerry Hudson's writing that is vibrant, authentic and true, it's the person herself, it's where the writing comes from; a wise and generous heart' KIT DE WAAL
'Hudson's resilience, grace and humility are staggering. She's an absolute inspiration' DOUGLAS STUART
'Kerry Hudson blew me away, opened my eyes' PHILIPPA PERRY
Reviews / Votes
I've just literally devoured Newborn and absolutely loved it * Giovanna Fletcher, Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast * Hudson nails many parents' innermost thoughts while asking if she can really give her son a different life * Red * An absorbing read, written in Hudson's fluent, companionable prose -- Jessica Traynor * Irish Times * Her memoirs are a rallying cry to those still stuck in the quagmire not to let society's low expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy * Herald * It was always going to be difficult to follow Lowborn, but Kerry Hudson is Kerry Hudson and she has done it -- cleverly, honestly, brilliantly -- RODDY DOYLE Filled with colour: food, Prague, illness, love, the challenges of having a baby in a foreign country and making your own story -- AMY LIPTROTMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
194 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-3147-1 (9781529931471)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2024
Vintage Digital
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Her first novel, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust First Book Award and was shortlisted for an array of prizes including the Guardian First Book Award and the Sky Arts Award. Thirst, her second novel, won the prestigious Prix Femina etranger. Lowborn, her highly acclaimed first work of non-fiction, was a Radio 4 Book of the Week, a Guardian and Spectator Book of the Year and Stylist Book of the Decade. It is followed by Newborn. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.