The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Briggs, Kate. The Long Form. Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2023.

The Long Form follows the life of Helen and her newborn daughter, Rose. Helen did not purposefully choose to get pregnant. When she finds out she is pregnant, she considers her options and decides to continue the pregnancy and raise the baby. The baby’s father is not in the picture. Helen has her mother as support as well as her roommate, Rebba. She decides that she should move out of the flat she shares with Rebba even though Rebba does not want this. Helen feels that she and her baby should have their own home as they begin their life together as a family. Helen believes that she would not have been able to raise Rose had she not had the promise of the support of her mother and a place to live. Her new home is in the home of another woman, and the furniture in the flat is not her own.

The novel opens as Helen is trying to get Rose to sleep. Sleep has served as a joint project the two have worked on over the past several weeks as Helen tries to get Rose to follow the schedule of the adult world. Rose is not interested in following prescribed schedules, and Helen wonders if most parents have bought into the roles and routines of the adult world and secretly worry that their children will not so easily buy into these roles and will reject them.

Helen spends a lot of time walking Rose around their flat. She also looks out the window frequently, looking upon the outside world. She does not venture many places since Rose was born because she is not sure how Rose will behave out in the world, and she does not know how other people will respond to Rose. This window, then, serves to help her see the outside world even when she cannot join it. Helen is on maternity leave and is unsure of what she will do with Rose once her maternity leave is over.

Helen finally gets Rose to sleep. Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Helen gets upset as the delivery man keeps ringing the doorbell. Finally Helen opens the door and harshly grabs the package the man is trying to deliver, and her rude demeanor upsets the young man. He does not know why she just did not put a sign on the door not to ring the bell if her life would be so distracted by a ringing bell. This man’s story is told in reverse order throughout the novel. At the beginning, the reader is told that he is waiting for a text message, but the reader does not know why. Eventually it is revealed that he sent a text message to a woman telling her that he loves her, and he is waiting for her to text back.

Rose opens her package, and it is a copy of The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling that she ordered. She ordered this book because the online algorithm knows her preferences and suggested it to her. Indeed, this is a book that is aligned with her tastes from before Rose was born, and this makes her wonder how the algorithm deals with change. Perhaps she just might not have been the same person anymore who would have liked reading that book. She reads it throughout the novel, and the narrator shares key details about the life of Tom Jones throughout the novel.

Tom does not have parents, and he is left at the house of Mr. Allworthy who finds the baby on his bed. Mr. Allworthy decides to care for the baby and take responsibility for him. He is good to Tom for many years, but eventually he kicks him out after Tom celebrates on the same day a close relative died. They end up reconciling.

Helen eventually takes Rose to the park, something she does every day. Prior to becoming a mother, Helen thought parks were just a place for leisure, but having a baby has changed her perspective on many things. Rose falls asleep, and Helen stands on a bridge over a river. Helen starts to cry, not because she is sad but because she is exhausted. It starts to rain, but Helen has not brought an umbrella with her. The narrator notes how the rain falls on everybody and everything equally. It does not discriminate.

Helen and Rose eventually make it home, and Helen takes Rose out of the baby carrier and lays her on the bed. Even though they have been physically touching ever since Helen put the baby in the carrier, they reunite now that Rose is awake. Helen talks to Rose, and Rose smiles at Helen for the first time.