'The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano': Resisting motherhood

Donna Freitas' novel takes a deep dive into the "what-ifs" of a life-altering choice.

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Full disclosure: This is not a book I would have picked up if my book club hadn’t chosen it. Frankly, I hadn’t even heard of it. But the concept and its execution by author Donna Freitas — nine variations on “what-if” — turned out to be irresistible.

Rose, our title character, starts out the same in each of her possible lives: She’s a professor of sociology, quite happy as a feminist academic. She’s somewhat less happy as a wife. Her husband, Luke, has become quite unhappy about their childless state, even though he’s well aware Rose has no interest in being anyone’s mother. As we meet each Rose, Luke has just discovered that she’s been lying about taking prenatal vitamins just in case. Upon this fundamental breach of trust hang the “what-ifs.”

Does Rose hold firm to her principles, no matter what they cost her? Does she give in to save her marriage? In one life, she agrees to have a baby with her fingers metaphorically crossed behind her back (and how). In another, her capitulation leads to disaster.

Freitas is herself child-free by choice. She wrote in the novel’s acknowledgments:

To the women who’ve never wanted children, who society and culture have made to feel broken, and small, and less than, and like there must be something wrong with them for not wanting to bear children and for maybe never wanting to do this, even from a young age— this book is definitely written with you in mind.

I always assumed I’d have children one day. But as I approached 30, that day was still a hazy idea. My longtime boyfriend and I were too busy chasing careers and enjoying the adventures that a couple of decent paychecks could buy. The biological clock had not yet begun to tick for us.

Then I got a diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancer. The treatment was aggressive: surgery to take out as much cancerous tissue as possible, followed by radioactive iodine to destroy the rest. I got zapped three times, the final time with a dose big enough to set off a Geiger counter and keep me in a lead-lined hospital room for four days. After that, there was no question of getting pregnant until my body had purged enough of the radiation. My doctor suggested waiting three months. I went online, did my own research (long before that phrase became a meme) and told my boyfriend-turned-husband we’d wait 12 months. I marked the one-year anniversary of my hospital release on a calendar. When that day finally came, I couldn’t hear anything but that clock.

Such a “what if” is not among Rose Napolitano’s. I didn’t find that a glaring omission; in fact, it didn’t even occur to me until I was writing this. Freitas drew me all the way in with her imagining of nine separate paths for her protagonist, interweaving them in a way that blurs the lines between them. She even comes up with one where Rose gets to have her cake and eat it, too — and I’ve got to admit, that one was my favorite.