FLESH & BLOOD

N. WEST MOSS is the author of the story collection The Subway Stops at Bryant Park. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times, Salon, McSweeney’s, and many other publications. The recipient of three William Faulkner–William Wisdom gold medals and winner of the Saturday Evening Post ’s Great American Fiction Contest, she holds an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in narrative medicine from Columbia University. She works in New Jersey, where she lives with her husband.

“With a series of gentle incisions, this memoir cuts deep. Moss shows us a grief and gladness that, until now, we could not name.”—Martha Witt, author of Broken As Things Are

“[A] powerful account of [Moss’s] decades-long battle with infertility . . . In poetic language that’s by turns blunt and tender, Moss chronicles how she and her husband weathered their sorrow and surfaced from it, dignity still intact, their love ‘made up of the things we couldn’t give to one another, but also full of how hard we tried.’ This is as an enriching addition to the canon of literature around infertility.”—Publishers Weekly

“An engaging, even charming memoir . . . It feels like Moss is taking our hands and allowing us to accompany her on this journey. Her careful, lovely sentences and good-humored and thoughtful observations seem to be . . . part of her healing . . . This inviting memoir lights a path through grief and illness.”— Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Moss’s meditations on questions her experience have raised are full of calm maturity and quiet humor and give this book an appeal beyond its expected audience . . . Moss’s contemplations on life in general will resonate with women who are seeking peace and meaning in their own lives.”— Library Journal

“Flesh & Blood sparks and consoles. So frank and warm and full of humor, this book became a friend to me. I want to keep its tenderness and stunning wisdom always as my guide.”—Jackie Polzin, author of Brood

“N. West Moss is an exemplary talent. The words come alive on the page. You feel as though you are living inside this luminous book.”—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels

1. For millennia, women have been defined by their fertility. How do you think that history affects the author’s view of herself and her illness?
2. While the author is a private person, and our society has not often openly discussed miscarriage, hysterectomy, and infertility, we see her slowly sharing her experiences with her friends, and then even writing this book. What changed for the author? What does Moss gain by opening up? Have you shared your experience in similar situations?
3. Despite the serious subject matter of the book, the author uses humor throughout. What effect does that have and how does she use humor to help navigate her illness?
4. The author’s relationship with her husband is central to this book. How did you feel about the way Moss describes that relationship, and the subtle ways that it changes and deepens over sorrow and joy, and over time?
5. Why do you think Claude the praying mantis has as large a role in the book as he does? What does this tell you about what the author is experiencing? Did you connect in any way to Claude?
6. “Women had warned me that I would become invisible at 50, that men would not want me or even see me, that the world would treat me as irrelevant,” Moss writes, but it turns out this isn’t particularly problematic for her. Is this something that resonates for you? What is your relationship to aging?
7. There are moments in the book when the author feels let down by the medical establishment. How do you think doctors could more effectively “see” their patients? What role does compassion play in medicine?
8. The relationships between mothers and daughters run throughout this book. What strength does the author draw from the women in her family?
9. Moss discovers that with illness there is a before and an after, and her outlook changes. If you have been seriously ill, were you reshaped by the experience?
10. How has Moss created her legacy? Do you think we all have a drive to leave something of ourselves in this world?

Chapter 39: Wheeling into Surgery

A hysterectomy is a common enough operation, but this is my first surgery, and I am attuned to every detail. While some women may experience this as routine, I am like an explorer in a foreign land, my newly acquired access both terrifying and fascinating.

The back of my bed is raised so that I am sitting almost upright as I’m wheeled from the little yellow, curtained “room” through a hallway, past a reception desk of some kind, and into the operating room. I’ve had to say goodbye to Craig and Mom. For a moment I’m bereft and afraid, and then I’m reminded, not unpleasantly, that we are all essentially alone, that every journey comes down to this moment, when only our eyes see what we experience, only we feel our hearts thumping, only we notice the green tile of the operating room and how enormous and bright the operating lights are. They look like bugs’ eyes, with countless bulbs built to reflect the brightest light possible right up inside me, where no eyes or light have ever been, like the deepest darkest ocean cave—from utter darkness to blinding light. This is my life, I think, taking it all in. This is my life.

I am wide, wide awake, and a nurse leans into my face, smiling gently as she puts the back of my bed down so that I am lying flat. I smile back. She tells me her name. I don’t remember it. There is a man in there too, fussing around. He has dark hair and is not the doctor. The nurse calls for the doctor on a phone, I guess, although I can’t see her. Where is he, she wants to know. I can tell he’s supposed to be there already, or maybe it’s the anesthesiologist who’s missing. I miss the anesthesiologist myself.

The guy with the dark hair and green scrubs who is fussing around is near my hand and I say, very quietly, “Hello,” and although he’s wearing a mask, I can see that he smiles at me with real warmth, as though he’d forgotten I was there and is so pleased to see me. He looks very busy but I can’t help myself. “Will you hold my hand?” I ask him. He stops what he’s doing and slips his gloved, but warm, hand into mine and pauses, and smiles again. He is better than anesthesia. ”

And then the anesthesiologist slams into the room, and the man in green scrubs drops my hand. “Sorry,” says the anesthesiologist, sounding not really apologetic. He asks me what I like to drink, and I tell him I like martinis. “Vodka?” he asks me.

“No, gin,” I admit, although I don’t mind vodka. He fills a syringe, or maybe it was already filled when he arrives. As he syringes it into my IV bag, he says, “Imagine this is Bombay Sapphire, then,” bless his fucking heart. No kidding, even though I prefer Hendrick’s.

By the time the word Hendrick’s has gone across my synapses, the bright lights and green tiles and the smiling nurse and the fussing man with the warm hand are all quite disappeared.