Paradise, piece by piece

by Molly Peacock

Molly Peacock is an award-winning, nationally recognized poet. She is also childless by choice. Over the years she found herself addressing - both internally and to others - crucial matters of self-definition: Was it possible to be a "complete woman" without having children? How does a woman talk about her life if it doesn't involve motherhood? How do people grow up if they don't have children? In her first book-length endeavor in prose, Peacock puts language to the unspoken decisions she made, seeking to learn how her chances became her choices, how, in the words of Simone de Beauvoir, "a destiny" is affected by "a freedom."