A brilliant exploration of the natural, medical, psychological, and political facets of fertility
When Belle Boggs''s "The Art of Waiting" was published in Orion in 2012, it went viral, leading to republication in Harper''s Magazine, an interview on NPR''s The Diane Rehm Show, and a spot at the intersection of "highbrow" and "brilliant" in New York magazine''s "Approval Matrix."
In that heartbreaking essay, Boggs eloquently recounts her realization that she might never be able to conceive. She searches the apparently fertile world around her--the emergence of thirteen-year cicadas, the birth of eaglets near her rural home, and an unusual gorilla pregnancy at a local zoo--for signs that she is not alone. Boggs also explores other aspects of fertility and infertility: the way longing for a child plays out in the classic Coen brothers film Raising Arizona; the depiction of childlessness in literature, from Macbeth to Who
