Oshetsky’s choice to evoke our popular idea of an owl is effectively romantic. To learn more about her owl side, I consulted Chris Conard, a natural resource specialist for Sacramento County, who guessed Chouette to be a Western screech, though he said the descriptions and cover image seem purposefully democratic. The owl-daughter presents another dichotomy. Sometimes these books simply reiterate the sentiment that parenting - even when rich and white - is difficult, but at their keenest, they offer complex reimaginings of societal roles. A spate of recent fiction about motherhood (Claire Vaye Watkins’s “ I Love You b ut I’ve Chosen Darkness,” Torrey Peters’s “ Detransition, Baby”) has helped broaden a canon that has been historically inaccessible to writers who, whether by raising children or working long hours or caring for elders, spend their days in service of others. The fable’s metaphors leap organically from the page, contouring the dichotomy as capably as do Neel’s oils: a newborn’s vulnerability and destructive power the mother’s isolation her tender, feral nature.

The novel is named for the owl-daughter who arrives and proceeds to overturn every system in Tiny’s life. She wrestles with the effect this baby will have on her music career, not to mention her reputation within her husband’s equally dull family. Tiny, a professional cellist living in Sacramento, has stepped out on her dull husband to have an affair with a beloved friend from her youth, a female owl, and is now pregnant with a baby who is half human, half owl. These renderings resulted from Neel’s grappling with the dual responsibilities of mother and artist, a dilemma she referred to as “that awful dichotomy.” Directly born from this dichotomy is Claire Oshetsky’s searing and ethereal debut novel, “Chouette.” Visitors to this year’s wildly popular Alice Neel retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art were treated to portraits depicting pregnancy at its most candid.

Claire oshetsky chouette