Reviewed by: The Changing Face of Motherhood in Spain: The Social Construction of Maternity in the Works of Lucía Etxebarria by Catherine Bourland Ross Jennifer Brady Bourland Ross, Catherine. The Changing Face of Motherhood in Spain: The Social Construction of Maternity in the Works of Lucía Etxebarria. Lanham: Bucknell UP, 2016. Pp. 151. ISBN 978-1-61148-727-5. One of Spain’s contemporary writers most tapped into popular culture and current events that affect social change, Lucía Etxebarria (1966–) deserves more scholarly attention. Catherine Bourland Ross’s recent book, The Changing Face of Motherhood in Spain: The Social Construction of Maternity in the Works of Lucía Etxebarria, offers an in-depth analysis into the life and works of Extebarria from the specific lens of motherhood. Bourland Ross begins the book with a courageous preface in which she states that personal experience encouraged her to understand that motherhood is a plurality of experiences that challenge—and sometimes accept—traditional ideas of maternity. The author thoughtfully outlines the complicated nature of motherhood: it is a social construct and is continuously influenced by political pressures. Pressures from the public sphere have constructed an inaccurate, singular notion of motherhood as biological, simple, and easy. As Bourland Ross reminds readers throughout her study, however, a woman’s choice or ability to become a mother is often more complicated than outdated social norms suggest. There are many ways to be a mother, and motherhood embeds within it a variety of meanings and expressions. Spain presents an interesting case for changing notions of maternity in the last half of a century or so. The country’s swift transition to democracy after the end of dictatorship in 1975 opened the door to the wide dissemination of feminist notions and gender equity. Still, patriarchal norms kept a strong hold. The author contends that Etxebarria both explores and subverts such antiquated norms in the development of literary representations. In the introduction, Bourland Ross outlines the social, literary, and theoretical contexts in which she situates her study of Etxebarria’s fiction. The concise and informative first section is especially useful for readers wishing to learn more about scholarship on motherhood. The first chapter analyzes Francoist notions of motherhood in Etxebarria’s literary construction of female protagonists in Spain after the dictatorship. In this first chapter, Bourland Ross explores fictional mothers in two of Etxebarria’s novels, Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes and Un milagro en equilibrio, both of which will be examined in subsequent chapters as well. The figure of Beatriz, a young woman in post-Franco Spain, is juxtaposed with her conservative mother, Herminia, who lived during the dictatorship. Bourland Ross’s analysis of Un milagro en equilibrio seeks to reconcile the complicated representation of motherhood that Extebarria constructs in the novel. She muses, “Is it [the novel] a feminist treatise on motherhood, or does it reinforce traditional patterns?” (17–18). Precisely embedded in this question is the key to understanding women in Extebarria’s fiction in general. Her fictional representations of women define women across binary boundaries. They can be feminine and/or masculine; they can be traditional and/or contemporary; and, more than just challenge outdated notions, Extebarria seeks to blur the lines between dichotomies, which, consequently, opens up even more possibilities for what is means to be a woman and a mother. In the second chapter, Bourland Ross analyzes relationships between mothers and daughters in two novels, Amor, curiosidad, Prozac y dudas and Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes, focusing on the theme of resentment and blaming. Mother-blame, a term coined by Paula Caplan, alienates mothers from their daughters by defining the mother as the root of the daughter’s problems later in life. In this context, resentment and blame become socially constructed norms that castigate the figure of the mother rather than praise her role in raising a woman. In Amor, curiosidad, Prozac y dudas, three sisters narrate their experiences, each with their own voices, and place blame on their mother for their own issues with physical intimacy and interpersonal relationships. Mother-blame is also underlying in Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes as Herminia and Beatriz butt heads as they negotiate...
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Dec 18, 2023
Petr Anténe 
Open Access