Lisa Owens’s second novel, 'Natural Disaster', provides a starkly honest and often humorous look at the final day of maternity leave for an unnamed mother of two. Following her critically acclaimed 2016 debut, 'Not Working', Owens once again centres her narrative on the complexities of modern female experience, this time through the lens of motherhood.
The novel opens at 5 am, setting the scene for a planned 'yes day' – a day of treats and positive experiences – that inevitably veers off course. The treats are often ill-judged or unappreciated, and moments of joy are quickly overshadowed by anxiety, guilt, or humiliation. This familiar scenario forms the bracing premise of the book, which captures the 'cluttered yet lonely planet of motherhood' with a blend of honesty and idiosyncrasy.
Owens's narrative skilfully portrays the mother's shifting identity, particularly how her personal name is often replaced by the anonymous 'Mum' in wider society, such as during a child's tantrum in a shop or a later medical emergency. This loss of individual identity, where a woman becomes 'a flat, rudimentary approximation of a person, lacking in nuance or finesse', is a key theme explored with 'achingly exact realism'.
The characters surrounding the protagonist, including her retired parents and her two rambunctious sons, Felix and Rudy, are depicted with vivid detail and authenticity. Owens excels at capturing the challenging yet deeply loving aspects of parenting, from the 'maternal battering' of a bike pedal to the 'marshmallow of love' in a child's embrace. The absent father, away at a health-tech conference, remains a 'shadowy, loaded presence', a focus for the mother's 'differently shaped parcels of resentment', including suspicions of adultery and gaslighting.
While some moments delve perhaps too deeply into the minutiae of daily logistics, such as acquiring baby equipment or fridge contents, this precision also serves to highlight the 'slowing of time that motherhood can bring about'. The novel suggests that this can lead to a fixation on the mundane, even as the 'active' world continues outside. Ultimately, 'Natural Disaster' addresses profound questions about the modern woman’s emotional and practical responses to the societal expectation of 'having it all', and the internal struggle as she anticipates returning to work, escaping a 'black hole of dead-eyed apathy' while grappling with guilt.