Unearthing Haunting Secrets: Erica Stern’s Frontier Blends Memoir and Ghost Story in Chilling Harmony
Reviewed by Leslie Lindsay
Twenty years ago, in a Prairie-style community hospital in the middle of a Minnesota cornfield, I gave birth to my first daughter. Like Erica Stern, I was on the edge of a new frontier. Like Erica Stern, I had idealized motherhood through tender diaper commercials and anodyne magazines with blisteringly serene mother-baby moments.
Having lived in New Orleans, Stern relocated to Chicago. After my time in Minnesota, I relocated not far from another cornfield, but also, if I squint, I too, can see Lake Michigan glinting in the distance. It seems we both traveled, not unlike pioneers, to begin our journey into parenthood. I’m thinking about land and water, bone and amniotic fluid, breath and wind, the crossing of a portal, a threshold from person to parent, but always a writer, always a worrier.
