TOUCHED OUT
Available now
“Montei’s meditation on motherhood is a new classic.”
—Anne Boyer, author of The Undying
In this stunning blend of memoir and criticism, a new mother examines the cultural and political entitlement to women’s work, considering how caregivers can take back their bodies and pass on a language of consent to their children.
When author Amanda Montei became a parent, mothers she knew spoke of the physical overwhelm of caring for children as though it were par for the course. But on the eve of #MeToo, as she struggled to adjust to the new demands on her body, she began to see a connection between how women were feeling in motherhood and the larger culture of violence and violation. Exploring the stories we tell about psychology, childbirth, sexuality, the family, the overwhelm mothers feel trying to be “good,” and the bonds between parent and child, Touched Out delivers a powerful critique of American rape culture and its continuation in the institution of motherhood, and considers what it really means to care in America.
“Montei deftly reveals the web of outrageous expectations, contradictions, and impossibility that is the institution of motherhood in the United States today. She traces this web back to her own coming-of-age in the superficially ‘girl power’ 1990s, before messages of sexual consent were the cultural norm, and then through a deeply honest and visceral rendering of her early days of parenting… Touched Out is a rallying cry against the normalization of a mother’s suffering… Reading the book is like the opposite of being gaslit: it lights up everything at once.”
“I burned through the pages of Touched Out like it was a whodunit— the crime scene consisting of women like Montei and myself, shell-shocked by motherhood and confused and ashamed about such a response. I yearned to go back to my younger self and hand her a copy.”
One of my favorite living writers… A genre-redefining masterpiece.”
—Rebecca Woolf, author of All of This
“Trenchant and revelatory… The central achievement of Touched Out — the one that makes me want to press this book into the hands of every parent and expectant parent I know — is how artfully Montei connects the dots between her private shame and this collective assault, opening the door for her readers to do the same.”
Amanda Montei’s writing… has to do with motherhood, but… it’s a lot more interested in what it feels like to be a person in the world operating within others’ expectations of you. It’s about sobriety, ambivalence, and consent, and the feminization and normalization of pain… it’s unflinching but doesn’t make me feel dead inside… I love it. Amanda’s new book, Touched Out, is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve read this year— particularly if you, too, like that electric space between theory and craft.”
—Anne Helen Petersen, author Can’t Even and Culture Study
“Wow wow wow.”
—Lyz Lenz, author of Belabored and Men Yell at Me
“Montei is leading the charge in a new wave of feminism—centering care as a fundamental value but challenging the notions that women have to do it all. Touched Out is a beautiful mix of the personal and the political, granting women agency over their bodies while centering blame on the systems that have failed them over and over. A must-read!”
—Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play
“How much of the corporeal work of American mothering originates in us, and how much is a result of a culture that controls female bodies and conditions us to be sacrificial and passive, drained but venerated vessels of maternal love? The question is as monumental as it is unsettling. With both scholarly prowess and intimate storytelling—and with a desirous brain and body—Amanda Montei explores this labyrinthine terrain to move caregivers and children closer to joy, autonomy, and freedom.”
—Angela Garbes, author of Essential Labor and Like a Mother
“A brilliant and timely meditation that is an absolute must-read for any woman who has ever felt her body is not her own anymore—pawed at, pressed into service, treated possessively, or even impregnated against her will. In America today, this may just include all of us.”
—Kate Manne, author of Down Girl and Entitled
“A searing exploration not just of American motherhood, but of the myriad obstacles all women face on the road to locating agency and embodiment in American culture. In Touched Out, Amanda Montei takes her place among the most rigorous feminist thinkers of our time to unpack sex, rape culture, caretaking, consent, choice feminism, and #MeToo with an exacting critical eye balanced by striking prose and emotional depth. The result is an essential read and one I’ll return to for years to come.”
—Allie Rowbottom, author of Jell-O Girls and Aesthetica
“Amanda Montei boldly explains the experiences women have that are so frequently silenced. At turns illuminating and enraging, Touched Out is a crucial read for anyone who cares about mothers and mothering, and for anyone realizing that a culture that loves motherhood isn’t the same as one that respects and cares for women.”
—Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her
“Few desires or pleasures escape the devastating forces of patriarchy and profit, and Montei deftly and unflinchingly traces the scars left by these forces in her own life and the lives of others. Never betraying love’s possibilities in her critique of love’s economic and social perils, Montei’s meditation on motherhood is a new classic.”
—Anne Boyer, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Undying
“Devastatingly relatable… revelatory… Montei engages deeply with classic feminist scholarship—from Silvia Federici to Adrienne Rich—while breaking entirely new ground. Touched Out is an entry of its own: original, illuminating, and inciting.”
—Tracy Clark-Flory, author of Want Me
Reading Touched Out has prompted so many conversations for me amongst my peers, my spouse, and my children. It woke me up from a haze of guilt and despair, angst and pressure and brought me an immense amount of relief… a gift and [an] act of love…”
“Meeting the post-pandemic, post-Roe moment, Montei’s book begs us to push back against antiquated systems designed to keep women at home, silent and suffering. Touched Out offers a reckoning and a resolution; Montei’s words will help women stitch themselves whole.”
“Montei… confronts addiction and ambition and pleasure, the tenderness and grit of care work, and the tenuous strings that hold people together in the hardest moments of the domestic sphere in the United States — a domain built on flimsy support. [Touched Out is] an examination that mines decades of feminist theory alongside her own story... It asks us to demand something better.”