Sorrow and Bliss

English writer Mason excels in her heartbreaking U.S. debut, an account of a woman’s self-discovery amid her struggle with mental illness. Martha Russell was raised by volatile artists and as a teenager began to be affected by debilitating bouts of depression, for which she’s prescribed an antidepressant. Told by a physician that it would be disastrous to get pregnant while on her medication, Martha spends the her adulthood telling her romantic partners—and trying to convince herself—that she doesn’t want to be a mother. Martha’s mental health (“Unless I inform you otherwise, at intervals throughout my twenties and most of my thirties, I was depressed,” she narrates) ends her first marriage and jeopardizes the second, to longtime family friend Patrick. After Martha is finally prescribed an effective medication, she’s able to see her family relationships in new light—but is it too late to repair them? Martha’s anecdotes, simultaneously funny and sad, are stacked with observations that alternate between brutally cutting—especially when directed at her mother and at the patient and supportive Patrick—and aching, as when her oblique descriptions of her sister’s growing family increasingly belie her true feelings about motherhood. Witty and stark, Martha’s emotionally affecting story will delight fans of Sally Rooney. (Feb.)