Jessica E. Johnson’s recently published memoir Mettlework meets the market to glowing reviews. We’ll let the reviews speak for themselves:

From Amber Wheeler Bacon in Full Stop

“It is in Johnson’s own story of making a home and becoming a mother that this book comes truly alive. There’s a vitality in these sections, reminiscent of the way they compare the remove in their mother’s letters—which convey an active sense of recording memories how she wants to remember them—and the immediacy of the text messages Johnson sends to their poet-mom text group, and to others in the midst of daily chaos, filled with wtf and omg.”

From Emily Webber in Mom Egg Review

“What emerges strongly from Mettlework is the magic of reading and writing, especially the value of documenting and writing personal stories to understand one another better. So, not only does Johnson appreciate her mother more fully and the intricacies of what being a mother means, but she also learns what she wants for herself, what home means, and the stories she will pass on to her children.”

From Mary Ardery in DIAGRAM

“One of the most impressive feats of this book is the astute placement of the personal experience within a broader context.”

From Elizabeth Marshall in PopMatters

“In Mettlework, girlhood is never over. Instead, it is an ‘un-mineable’ dimension that Johnson recounts, ‘I was wrong about the shape of time: I’d left nothing behind, I’d been walking in a circle I could only now perceive.’”