Summary

The novel begins with an account of Claude’s conception from the third-person perspective of his mother, Rosie Walsh-Adams. Longing for a daughter after having four sons, she resorted to folkloric suggestions for conceiving one, although she is a doctor who prides herself on being “a disciple of logic and reason” (3). She places a wooden spoon under her bed, feels silly, removes it, and then puts it back under the bed when her husband, Penn, enters the room. She and Penn have sex before going back to working and caring for their children.

Later, while Rosie is waiting to pick her sons up from the bus, her neighbor, Heather, mocks her for the size of her family and Penn’s status as a stay-at-home novelist, commenting, “I don’t know how you do it … Or why...