K Chiucarello

In the midst of so many literary reconsiderations of motherhood, this book announces itself as an essential left-field addition to the contemporary canon — a story of a career nanny, a professional mother substitute, yearning for a child as a way to undo and reconfigure the physical and emotional violence of an ex-girlfriend; unraveling, too, the way her self-formation as a mother-in-absence, a body to be depleted and taken for granted, dovetailed with her experience of domestic abuse. K Chiucarello is a thrilling, forthright, sensual, deeply perceptive writer; NANNY NANNY comes at you like an incendiary secret, a sweet and dangerous flame kindled in the dark.

Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror

K is waiting for a phone call from her first love. 
 
Over a decade ago she made a pact with him: if neither had found a partner, they would marry and have a baby. Now, at 35, after years as a career nanny mothering other women’s children, she has been struck with that relentless, near carnal desperation to give birth. And this call may be the cure. 
 
Whilst she waits – in a bar, drinking with friends – she lays out the reasons why she has arrived at this point, and each reason opens a door to the past: to her own childhood; to the wealthy families whose children she has caretaken; to an abusive partnership with a woman that she barely survived. Each thread reveals the complex tangle of thrill and pain, tradition and progress that have led to this call, this choice. 
 
A stunning, rare and unexpectedly funny debut, Nanny Nanny upends every expectation of a motherhood book.

Nanny Nanny

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K Chiucarello

Praise for Nanny Nanny

In the midst of so many literary reconsiderations of motherhood, this book announces itself as an essential left-field addition to the contemporary canon — a story of a career nanny, a professional mother sub ...

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