STEPMOTHER
Will be published approx. on 2. July 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
112 pages
978-1-78474-644-5 (ISBN)
Description
'Euripides said "better a serpent than a stepmother." For a moment, you like the idea of being a single line, winding around everything you touch. A vine.'
'Brave, graceful and absolutely vital - Mort shoulders away the old trope of the stepmother and replaces her with a host of humane women' SARAH HALL, author of Helm
When a new relationship casts poet Helen Mort in the role of stepmother, she embarks on a personal quest for understanding; moving across verse and personal essay, from fairytale to modern blended family.
Turning a bold and inventive gaze on this neglected dimension of female experience, these are candid dispatches from the shifting terrain of the modern family. As playful as it is moving, STEPMOTHER radiates Mort's signature empathetic warmth, but with the bite of truth.
Mort interleaves ravishing fragments of lyric essay with gothic flights into verse that draw us deep into the woods of upon-a-time, and back, changed, into the now. Groundbreaking and transformative, tender and uncompromising, STEPMOTHER has much to teach us about female power and the fear it still provokes, our openness to change, and the surprising shapes love can take.
'I was enchanted by her blend of generous lyric and furious cultural critique. A spell for seeing differently' CLARE POLLARD, author of THE MODERN FAIRIES
'Brave, graceful and absolutely vital - Mort shoulders away the old trope of the stepmother and replaces her with a host of humane women' SARAH HALL, author of Helm
When a new relationship casts poet Helen Mort in the role of stepmother, she embarks on a personal quest for understanding; moving across verse and personal essay, from fairytale to modern blended family.
Turning a bold and inventive gaze on this neglected dimension of female experience, these are candid dispatches from the shifting terrain of the modern family. As playful as it is moving, STEPMOTHER radiates Mort's signature empathetic warmth, but with the bite of truth.
Mort interleaves ravishing fragments of lyric essay with gothic flights into verse that draw us deep into the woods of upon-a-time, and back, changed, into the now. Groundbreaking and transformative, tender and uncompromising, STEPMOTHER has much to teach us about female power and the fear it still provokes, our openness to change, and the surprising shapes love can take.
'I was enchanted by her blend of generous lyric and furious cultural critique. A spell for seeing differently' CLARE POLLARD, author of THE MODERN FAIRIES
Reviews / Votes
'Brave, graceful and absolutely vital - Mort shoulders away the old trope of the stepmother and replaces her with a host of humane women who undertake the complicated, skillful, often powerless work of loving children. All the difficulties, privileges and rewards of remade families are in this collection; so is extraordinary sorority amid the minefields' * Sarah Hall, author of HELM * 'We're familiar with art as an 'act of love' but sometimes it's also an act of life, of living itself; a book that must be written in order to live. In this utterly remarkable collection, Helen Mort builds a home, and a skin: a shape-shifting, porous house in which the poet, and everyone she loves, might live in the fullest sense of the word' * Caroline Bird, author of THE AIR YEAR * 'After becoming a stepmother herself, Helen Mort begins to question the narrative about their supposed 'wickedness'. Whether retelling fairytales or analysing contemporary porn, I was enchanted by her blend of generous lyric and furious cultural critique. A spell for seeing differently' * Clare Pollard, author of THE MODERN FAIRIES *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
300 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78474-644-5 (9781784746445)
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
Helen Mort
STEPMOTHER
The new prose-poetry collection exploring one of our society's most maligned female figures
E-Book
approx. 07/2026
Vintage Digital
€14.99
Not yet available
Person
Helen Mort has published three collections of poetry: Division Street (2013), winner of the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, No Map Could Show Them (2016) and The Illustrated Woman (2022). Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Forward, T. S. Eliot and Costa Prizes. She has written a novel, Black Car Burning (2019) and a short story collection, Exire (2019). Her creative non-fiction includes A Line Above The Sky (2022), winner of the Boardman Tasker Award, and Ethel (2024). She is a Professor in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and lives in Sheffield.