Common Ground

by Andrew Cowan

Book Overview

With his wife, Jane, pregnant, Ashley must resign himself to impending fatherhood and decide whether to assume the values of his parents or shun society like his brother, in a poignant, witty story by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140260722
• ISBN13: 9780140260724
• Release Date: March 1997
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.6" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

As close as you'll get to a pregnant man

Common Ground offers the rare perspective of a male charting his emotional changes during his (unmarried) partner's pregnancy. Unusually sensitive, but otherwise average, Ashley encourages Jay to keep the baby when she gets pregnant and then tracks how he feels through detailed letters to his brother Douglas, off on a multi-year trip around the world. Ashley chronicles the way Jay's pregnancy and then his daughter, Maggie, change the way he feels, reacts and sees the world. Set in England, this is a very real book, with resonance anywhere. The decay of his urban environment, his sarcasm (a conversation with Jay's mother is a "earth-to-satellite link-up"), his insecurities transcend gender and place. Common Ground provides a wealth of well-written commonalities for readers without being trite or obvious.