A Little Give

Sometimes I think that carrying - other people, the continuity of history, generational identity, the emotional load of the everyday - is the main thing that women do.

In Marina Benjamin's new set of interlinked essays, she turns her astute eye to the tasks once termed 'women's work'. From cooking and cleaning to caring for an ageing relative, A Little Give depicts domestic life anew as a site of paradox and conflict, but also of solace and profound meaning. In it, productivity sits alongside self-erasure, resentment with tenderness, and the animal self is never far away, perpetually threatening to break through.

Drawing on the work of figures such as Natalia Ginzburg, Paula Rego, and Virginia Woolf, Benjamin writes with forensic candour of the struggle to overwrite the gender conditioning that pulls her back into 'the mud-world of pre-feminism' even as she attempts to haul herself out. From her upbringing as the child of immigrants whose culture she rejected, to looking after her mother and seeing her teenager move out of home, she examines her relationships with family, community, her body, and even language itself. Ultimately, she shows that a woman's true work may lie at the heart of her humanity, in the pursuit both of transformation and of deep acceptance.

'We all know the existential funk that housework can incite, women more so than men as they have traditionally carried the load. Not to mention the mixed emotions that go with caring for others. Marina Benjamin ruminates on the historical and societal pressures, constraints and value of this work through the lens of her own Iraqi-Jewish family - her dynamic, frustrated mother who drummed into her that "women were put on this planet to please" and her creative father who didn't question that being looked after was his due. No simple solutions are offered. Instead, she rewardingly riffs on the visceral push and pull of this work.' - Cameron Woodhead, The Sydney Morning Herald

'Acerbic and tender all at once, A Little Give voices the unspeakable tangle of feelings that assail women in middle age. I can think of few writers so astute and exact as Marina Benjamin.' - Katherine May, author of Wintering

'With its unfailing attentiveness to the sensory and emotional textures of everyday life, Marina Benjamin's beautiful writing feels like a model of good care. A wry, absorbing, and very moving book.' - Josh Cohen, author of How to Live. What to Do