‘I was wildly depressed when I was pregnant – but there’s so much secrecy, shame and guilt’

telegraph.co.uk:

The School for Good Mothers – such lapses in concentration can be life-changing.The dystopian novel, set in Chan’s former home city of Philadelphia, sees mothers deemed by the state to have failed their children sent to a reform institution, where they are given parenting lessons by women in pink lab coats. ‘I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good,’ they must chant.Transgressions range from letting your child play in the garden alone to ‘coddling’ and physical abuse.

Frida’s nightmare – in which her toddler daughter, Harriet, is taken away – begins after she has a ‘very bad day’. Sleep-deprived and under intense work pressure, she leaves Harriet alone at home while she runs an errand, during which time the police are called.It’s a fantastically dark, satirical tale, about a morally ambiguous heroine (who acted on an impulse that any parent who juggled homeschooling and working from home will recognise), government intervention in family life and the judgment passed on mothers by those who believe they know best – including one another.‘Instead of saying, “This is so unhelpful and inappropriate,” I just filed it away,’ adds Chan about that playground castigation – one of many such incidents she used as inspiration. ‘I got my feelings out but not necessarily in the moment.’The 43-year-old is speaking to me over Zoom from Chicago, where she was raised, a first-generation Chinese-American, by her university professor parents; she recently moved back to be closer to them.