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Ayelet Waldman's Memoir Of A 'Bad Mother'

Fresh Air
Published May 5, 2009 at 1:52 PM PDT

Four years ago, novelist Ayelet Waldman sparked a controversy — and wound up on Oprah to defend herself — when she wrote in an essay that she loved her husband more than her children.

Now, in the memoir Bad Mother, Waldman details the fall-out of that essay, as well as what she calls "the perils and joys of trying to be a decent mother in a world intent on making you feel like a bad one."

Waldman is the author of Daughter's Keeper, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits and the Mommy-Track mystery series. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Vogue and Parenting.

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