Writers sometimes talk of giving birth to their books, but probably very few are also working as doulas. It’s an experience that clearly informs Leila Mottley’s new novel, The Girls Who Grew Big, in which the struggles of pregnancy and motherhood loom large. Mottley’s work as a doula comes in addition to writing a bestselling debut novel, Nightcrawling, and featuring on Oprah’s Book Club; she was also youth poet laureate of Oakland, California, in 2018. But not much seems beyond the reach of the youngest ever writer to be longlisted for the Booker prize, back in 2022. The pity is that her considerable energy hasn’t translated into a more satisfying second book.
The Girls Who Grew Big tells the story of a gang of teenage mothers and the impromptu community they form in the humid disarray and general dysfunction of Padua, a fictional small town in the Florida panhandle. Led by their de facto leader, Simone, the Girls are a scrappy, ostracised handful of outsiders, variously rejected by their families and harshly judged by locals. Down on their luck and often abandoned by the adults in their lives, they resourcefully become a collective, based in the back of Simone’s truck.
