But her romantic designs are soon humbled when she learns that pregnancy and motherhood are perhaps, in reality, as she has suspected, poisonous carrots dangled in front of dreamy, worldly women in order to entice them into a club of behavioural manipulation, and to narrow their sphere of existence rather than blowing it wide open.Įva, the owner of a shoe-string travel guidebook company, whose very spiritual nourishment comes from the unique mixture of fear and delight of travelling abroad and who bathes in other cultures as a way of cleansing herself of her very Americannesssomething she loathes enough that she flies the flag of her Armenian background wherever possiblesees having a child as, perhaps, a journey into those most unrelatable, challengingly foreign vistas.

The birth of a child is seen in society as something transcendental, a way of establishing oneself as a member of a club that has bragging rights to its very existence: it is, perhaps, Eva thinks desperately, a way of escaping those endless barriers and manacles of daily life. The anguish she experienced at her tenth birthday party stemmed not from the fact that her mother didnt make an effort, but rather that she' did, and the result failed to transcend the puerile, the day to day.įor Eva, the decision to have a child emerges from an existential haze that is slowly descending on her to blinding effect. But yet, Eva has always wanted something more out of her life than what it has offered up to her from its platter of banality. Thanks for visiting!Įva Khatchadourian is ambivalent on the notion of children: she fears the curtailing of her life and career, and the mind-numbing spiral into a world of baby-talk and mushy foods. If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader.

Kevin lionel shriver