Never Silent: A Conversation with Nicole Graev Lipson

Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: A Memoir in Essays

by Nicole Graev Lipson

Chronicle Prism, 2025; 248 pp; $17.95

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In Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: A Memoir in Essays (Chronicle Prism, 2025), Nicole Graev Lipson shares stories about the complexities of motherhood. As she adjusts to this new identity, Lipson reflects on girlhood, explores her relationships, and shares her fertility journey. Lipson also addresses societal taboos such as women’s mental health, body image, infidelity, and longings to take a break from being a mother.

While I am not a mother yet, I have found a connection to Lipson’s work. Through Lipson’s prose, I am reminded of the power of vulnerability. As a woman who is still learning about herself and who she wants to become, I feel comforted knowing that Lipson is still evolving, too.

I spoke with Lipson over Zoom. Together, we dove deeper into her thought process, uncovered the great influences in her life, and explored the ways in which motherhood has made her stronger. This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Isabella Fusani: What, or who, inspired you to write this book? 

Nicole Graev Lipson: My children. Motherhood was really the experience that catalyzed this book. On the surface, having three kids under the age of eight might not be the best time to decide to write a book, but I found so much about motherhood and raising children to be really fascinating. And motherhood, parenthood, and caregiving in general, I think, give you a front-row seat to so many of the most pressing and fundamental aspects of the human condition. You’re seeing everything: it’s life, it’s death, it’s love, it’s envy, it’s fear, it’s all of it. So, I felt I had a lot to write about and also some things to critique about motherhood as an institution in America right now.

I’ve always seen the world through a feminist lens, but [becoming a mother] did intensify all of these concerns. Suddenly, they weren’t just theoretical or academic. I saw how these human beings, whom I love more than anything in the world and whom I’m charged with caring for, are going to be impacted by all of the horrible messages in our culture. This was a tremendous catalyst for speaking out—and because I’m a writer, speaking out, for me, starts with writing.

IF: After writing a book dedicated to your life, girlhood, motherhood, friendships, and everything else in between, what have you learned about yourself that you didn’t know prior to your book?

NGL: I’ve discovered that I’m a more courageous person than I thought I was. It took courage for me to write about topics like extramarital attraction and my recurring longings to flee from my children for solitude. The [writing] process helped me develop the bravery to talk about these taboo feelings publicly.  Writing down some of these truths, that might have felt shameful or unspeakable to me for many years, has made them speakable and has made the shame dissipate. Realizing how speakable some things actually are, [that] I formerly thought of as unmentionable, has given me great confidence to step more publicly into these truths. 

IF: In your chapter titled “The New Pretty,” you write, “I fall back on the greatest power I know as an adolescent girl, which is to say nothing.” Our society teaches women at a young age that the best thing we can do for ourselves and those around us is to stay silent. How has this expectation of silence impacted your work as a writer and as a mother whose job it is to share your voice with the world?

NGL:  Women are taught at a young age to be silent, and I think it’s interesting that silence then becomes, very often, the tool of power we feel that we can wield. We resort to silent treatment and other passive ways of expressing our discontent or anger, versus more explosive forms of expressing anger, which in our culture are tagged as masculine. But I think that for many women—and myself included—bottling up strong emotion, sublimating it into silence, can only go on for so long before it has to come out, and there are many ways that it can erupt. It can come out in violent ways, it can come out in self-harm, and it can come out in more constructive ways, like writing. 

In many ways, the very project of this book was voicing the things that I had thought of as un-voiceable before. The project of this book wasn’t to shatter norms; it was to simply normalize what should be deemed normal. When we speak up about our experiences in honest, thoughtful, loving, respectful ways, it invites other people to do the same. I think that’s the transaction where normalization happens. It’s not just one person speaking truth into the world—it’s one person speaking truth into the world and other people answering by speaking their truths.

IF: Your book references many literary pieces, such as The Awakening by Kate Chopin, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and As You Like It by William Shakespeare. As someone who loves English and is constantly influenced by other literary works, I can’t help but wonder: what was the first piece of literature that sparked your interest in becoming an author? 

NGL: Joan Didion, George Orwell, James Baldwin, and Cynthia Ozick. These were some of the essayists I discovered early on, who made me realize that the essay wasn’t just something that my English teachers assigned me to write that was five paragraphs long and contained three pieces of evidence, but it was a way of thinking on the page. I discovered that the essay was a place where it was okay to be confused and not have all the right answers or to not have any answers but to think out loud.  

IF: In your chapter “Very Nice Blastocysts,” you write about your IVF journey to get pregnant. Did you learn anything new while you were researching for your book?

NGL: In that essay, one of the things that I try to get across is how IVF was an emotional quest for me and my husband, and the science behind it was secondary. I almost didn’t want to know the scientific details—only the relevant steps I needed to take in order to get pregnant. Digging into the actual science of embryos or the details of how the reproductive medical industry operates wasn’t something I was interested in doing. It was only in retrospect, as I was trying to figure out what to do with these three frozen embryos that remained after the successful round of IVF,  that I had to go there to help me in my quest to decide what to do. I learned a lot about the shortsightedness and undiscussed ancillary consequences of the fertility industry, a system that creates a lot of leftover frozen embryos.

IF: In your chapter “Thinkers Who Mother,” you write about your immediate need for bed rest while twenty-two weeks pregnant because of your “shortened” cervix, a condition that happens only when labor is near. Later, you learned that there is no medical evidence showing that bed rest prevents preterm labor. How do you feel about the medical community still not knowing basic things about women’s health?

NGL: Not good. I will say, what was interesting to me about that moment was how I became complicit, I think, because medical practitioners have so much power. I don’t mean an ill-intentioned or evil power. I just mean in our imaginations, they have so much power. So even after I had learned that bed rest was basically a wives’ tale, I didn’t stand up and start walking because the only compass I had was the medical industry. I didn’t have any other guide to follow in how to proceed with this information. 

I think that this is very connected to what we were talking about in terms of silence and voicelessness. There are probably a lot of women who aren’t even sensing that they might not be getting the treatment that they need to be getting. And then, with our new administration, it’s a frightening time too, in terms of how money is being allocated for research related to women’s health.

IF: At the end of “Thinkers Who Mother,” you address the readers by saying, “Tomorrow, maybe it will be you. Which thinker will you recognize for her mothering? Which mother will you recognize for her thinking?” I absolutely loved this jump you made. I felt a connection to you, as if you were looking me in the eyes. This leads me to ask what inspired you to reach out to the audience and ask them your own questions.

NGL: It definitely was not a conscious and intentional choice in the sense that I was like, “Hmm, you know what I’m gonna do here? I’m gonna actually break the fourth wall and start talking to the reader.” Often, when I’m addressing the reader, it’s an appeal to their heart, not just their mind. I had spent a lot of time thinking about how mothering and caregiving are an intellectual discipline, one that I hoped readers would more deeply see in themselves or in other mothers around them. Speaking directly to the reader was a little emotional call to action. 

IF: What are you working on next?

NGL: I have some hazy ideas for the next book, which I’m not really ready to talk about because they’re so vague. But I’m working right now on an essay on the topic of estrangement for an anthology that’s coming out next year from Catapult, and I think this is a topic that really needs to be addressed. I have a family member whom I’m estranged from, and nearly everyone whom I happen to mention this to in passing is like, “Oh yeah!” Maybe they have a family member they’re estranged from, or their parents are estranged from a sibling. It’s so common, and yet it’s another one of those unspeakable things. I’d like to write about that unspeakable territory.