To say that Elisa Albert‘s novel After Birth avoids expectations would be the very definition of an understatement. On the surface, the plot may seem familiar: Ari, the novel’s narrator, is the mother of a small child; she seeks out a onetime musician, Mina, who arrives in the college town where Ari lives in the hopes of friendship. That, as a summary, doesn’t do justice to the sense of disquiet that pervades the novel, nor does it capture Ari’s narrative voice, which […]