(reviewed by JD Jung)
“Europe is the best place for a Latin American to starve to death and drink good wine.”
Gabriela Wiener and her husband originally travelled from Peru to Barcelona on student visas. However, when these two journalists sought employment as undocumented immigrants, they found they were on the bottom of the hiring lists. When she learned she was pregnant, this complicated her already dire financial situation.
It wasn’t just their economic state that presented problems for her. Becoming a mother seemed as foreign as anything could have, and she looked to history, mythology, and movies for answers to her questions. Hence, she was a prime target for disinformation.
Difficult for her, but hilarious for us, Weiner chronicles her pregnancy month by month in Nine Moons, which by the way, according to her, means something totally different than one would expect.
Just as provocative and unapologetic as Sexographies, she introduces us to others navigating their own situations. She writes what she knows in an unrestrained manner.
Of course, women soon learn that childbirth is not the most important aspect of a mother’s journey. She alludes to this in the Afterword as she reveals unforeseen events in their lives and acknowledges that her now thirteen-year-old daughter is her own person.
Nine Moons may not appeal to everyone, but it mirrors real life in a heartfelt and humorous way.
