Description

‘By turns bloody, sweet, bleak and joyful… It is also very, very funny’ NEW STATESMAN

This is a graphic memoir (like a graphic novel, but true – and also a bit graphic).

It’s about the delirium, chaos and strangeness of becoming a parent for the first time.

It’s for every one who has ever wondered if it’s ok to cry when the baby cries – and also laugh, snort, lie on the floor naked and drool when the baby drools.

This is definitely not a parenting manual, but it might be the only book about parenting you’ll ever need.

‘You will cry, yes, but mainly snort with laughter’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘The most accurate account of becoming a parent I have ever read’ PHILIPPA PERRY

‘Bracingly truthful… very funny’ OBSERVER

‘It made me laugh, weep, cheer and howl… essential reading for parents and their peers.’ NELL FRIZZELL

‘So clever, so funny, so astute, so healing. Becky Barnicoat is a stone cold genius’ LUCY JONES

Publisher Review

No subject is for her off limits, from leaking breasts to dubious stains. But the more important thing by far is that it’s very funny and even sardonic… This is a very analogue book, somehow, and all the better and more uplifting for it. Mothers, log off! Here’s the antidote to all that striving; here is the muddle that will set your minds at rest, even if it won’t actually rock your baby to sleep. * Observer, *Graphic novel of the month* * The most accurate account of becoming a parent I have ever read. It’s fabulous. This book is a perfect testament to the wild ride of early parenting. It’s tender, moving, beautifully drawn and also, extremely hilarious. Parents everywhere: you will feel very very seen. The most hilarious, wonderful, poignant, powerful, insightful and relatable book on the wild world of early parenting I have ever read. Barnicoat’s fantastic illustrations and wry humour come together to create something brilliant that I will be recommending to everyone. It made me laugh, weep, cheer and howl. It is essential reading for parents and their peers. A corrective to decades of misty-eyed depictions of motherhood… bloody, sweet, bleak and joyful… Her account is intimate and granular… It is also very, very funny * New Statesman * I couldn’t love this book more. So clever, so funny, so astute, so healing. Becky Barnicoat is a stone cold genius. I will put this book in the hands of every new mother I know. — Lucy Jones, author of MATRESCENCE [A] very funny, sardonic book – an analogue antidote to the Instagram version of motherhood * Observer, *Books of the Year* * A marvel. A moving, honest memoir; a hilarious comedy routine; a parenting guide which tells you all the stuff the rest somehow seem to leave out. Above all, it is the most extraordinary masterclass in cartooning. If you know a new parent, believe me: they need this book as urgently as they need a home-made lasagne. — Stephen Collins, author of THE GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL Becky’s cartoons about parenting make me cry and laugh, often simultaneously. Never self-pitying or twee, as so much writing about parenting can be. Just totally honest and wise and true. — Hadley Freeman, author of HOUSE OF GLASS Wow! This book is stellar – brave, brutal and laugh-out-loud hilarious, yet ultimately sincere and tender. A total winner! — Joff Winterhart, author of DRIVING SHORT DISTANCES Brilliant and hilarious… [Cry When the Baby Cries] vividly evokes those feverish, feral, fluid-soaked months after giving birth * Guardian * Cry When the Baby Cries…captures the bone-deep exhaustion, overwhelming love and utterly useless advice all parents will have experienced. You will cry, yes, but mainly snort with laughter * Sunday Times * Painfully raw, lovingly hilarious, and deeply empathetic. I wish I’d had this book in those first brutal, beautiful weeks of motherhood — Kirsty Logan, author of THE UNFAMILIAR: A QUEER MOTHERHOOD MEMOIR Becky Barnicoat has a great eye and ear for the contradictions, absurdities, and compromises that new parents face. A rare book, never cliched, perfectly honest. — Tom Lamont, author of GOING HOME Loving, honest, and SO funny, Becky Barnicoat depicts the long nights and short years of baby-raising with warmth and brilliance. Cry When the Baby Cries is the perfect gift for parents overwhelmed by cluster feeding, cabin fever, and the exhausting, exhilarating ‘it’ of ‘having it all’. — Ada Calhoun, author of WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP Laugh-out-loud funny, heart shatteringly tender and remarkably well observed. The most essential parenting book you’ll ever own — Harriet Gibsone, author of IS THIS OK?