This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story

by Jackie Shannon Hollis, Kate Mulligan (Foreword by)

Overview

As a farm girl in eastern Oregon, feeding bottles to bummer lambs and babysitting her little sister, Jackie Shannon Hollis expected to become a mother someday. After a series of failed relationships, she met Bill, the man she wanted to spend her life with. But he was a man who never wanted children. Saying I do meant saying I don’t to a rite of passage her body had prepared her for since puberty.

Told in short nonlinear chapters, This Particular Happiness explores the fracturing of female identity as Shannon Hollis questions her childless decision, navigates her roles as daughter and wife and sister and friend, and ultimately learns to listen to her own heart. This debut memoir is about what we keep and what we abandon to make space in our lives for love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982693022
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	12/31/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

In addition to thinking she would be a mother, Jackie Shannon Hollis once dreamed of being a June Taylor dancer or a race car driver. A lifelong Oregonian, she resides in a home her friends call the tree house. Through her local library, she facilitates writing classes for people experiencing houselessness. Jackie and her husband lead workshops on communication, conflict management, and creating successful and satisfying relationships.

Kate Mulligan is an actress who has acted with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for more than ten seasons in productions including Hairspray, Alice in Wonderland, and Sense and Sensibility. Her film and television work includes Being John Malkovich and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Content warningDisclaimerIn memoryLove opens doorsForwardPart 1- The Shout of MotherhoodChapter 1 - The Woman ThingsChapter 2 - We Practiced. We pretended.sub- My...sub- Mom...Chpater 3 - Good Housekeepingsub- Late...Chapter 4 - Flicker ShadowsChapter 3 - Good HousekeepingChapter 5 - This Unloosed ThingChapter 6 - The Knowing Was In Mesub- For...sub- Cats...Chapter 7 - A Place To slip Throughsub- A...Chapter 8 - A Place for a Girlsub- Dad...sub- One...Chapter 9 - Leaving Doesn't Mean It's Gone From Yousub- Condon...sub- A...Part II - Maybe This Will Make Me HappyChapter 10 - Falling ApartChapter 11 - The Man He Will BeChapter 12 - Things To Do When I Fall Apartsub- Tell...sub- Be...sub- Get...Chapter 13 - Important Things To Tell Your Daughterssub- As...Chapter 14 - Like a Badge, Like A Starsub- At...sub- After...Chapter 15 - The Muddy GroundChapter 16 - Clearly, Boldly, No ApologiesChapter 17 - Like I Knew What I Was Doingsub- Before...Chapter 18 - Red Days Circledsub- I...sub- Three...sub- I...sub- Years...Chapter 19 - Another Thing To Do When I Fall ApartChapter 20 - Get a Glow Onsub- Some...sub- One...Chapter 21 - We'll Talk About This Latersub- My...sub- Dawn...Chapter 22 - The Last Thing To Do When I Fall ApartChapter 23 - This Important WeightChapter 24 - Shiny Bows of Blue and Silversub- Leanne's...sub- There...Chapter 25 - His Place of Better Sunsetssub- When...sub- Bill...Chapter 26 - Like An Unmasked PrayerChapter 26 - Like An Unasked PrayerChapter 27 - Secrets and Calculationssub- It...28 - His Dream ChildChapter 29 - The Question of my Futuresub- Maybe...sub- Summer...sub- All...Chapter 30 - Precious Thingssub- In...Chapter 31 - Red Ink and Side Notessub- Bill...sub- I'm...sub- At...Chapter 32 - On The Way To A Grown-up Lifesub- That...sub- After...Chapter 33 - Fault Linesub- Amy...sub- Late...sub- Early...sub- After...sub- The...sub- Laater...Chapter 34 - Things That Come in ThreesChapter 35 - Stand Up and Carry Onsub- InChapter 36 - Light in the Chapelsub- At...sub- Back...sub- On...sub- Our...Chapter 37 - Roots Took Hold And Ran the Length of my Bodysub- Leanne's...sub- Sometimes...sub- Sometimes...Chapter 38 - Other People's Childrensub- Leanne...sub- When...Chapter 39 - Crazy Mazessub- On...sub- At...Chapter 40 - I Was Almost Suresub- The...Part III - A Kind of TransformationChapter 41 - What We Knew By NowChapter 42 - The Things People ThinkChapter 43 - The Synbols of my NameChapter 44 - This Was New. This Was Scary. Iwanted More.sub- The...sub- Around...sub- Sam...sub- The...sub- The...5556575859606162636465Chapter 46 - Conditional Surrendersub- I...Chapter 47 - The Place Where Ungiven Love is Heldsub- I...sub- In...sub- At...sub- The...Chapter 48- The Heart of a Witnesssub- Even...sub- I...sub- While...sub- asub- At...sub- This...Chapter 49- All OUt, All In, All Oversub- At...sub- Nothing...sub- You...sub- His...sub- Wen...sub- And...sub- Another...sub- This...7:57.558sub- But...sub- Do...sub- He...sub- Now...sub- One...Chapter 50 - No Belts for Safetysub- In...sub- The...Chapter 51 - Only For A ParentPart IV - What Comes When Wamting StopsChapter 52 - Make A Listsub- I...sub- In...Chapter 53 - A Whole Lot of Perfectionsub- After...sub- Now...sub- I...Cpater 54 - Maybe a Love Sound, Maybe A HeartbreakChapter 54 - Maybe a Love Sound, Maybe A Heartbreaksub- White...Chapter 66 - This Particular Happinesssub- One...Chapter 67 - Temporary Allograftsub- On...sub- A...Part V - The Joy I've Had All AlongChapter 68 - Most of the Time This is EmoughChapter 68 - Most of the Time This is EnoughChapter 69 - Tiny Tadpoles of Lifesub- Jan...Chapter 70 - A Cure for Hivessub- Women...Chapter 71 - Babylamdsub- We...sub- Now...sub- The...sub- Alan...sub- Bill...sub- In...sub- Poppysub- The...sub- Upstairs...sub- Alan...sub- Bill...sub- On...sub- We're...Blackstone Publishing presentsForward by Jody Day8Forward by Jody Day

Editorial Reviews

“This Particular Happiness, is a deeply moving story about Jackie Shannon Hollis’s decades-long yearning to have a child—and her complicated decision not to. But it’s also about so much more than that. With honesty, generosity, precision and insight, Hollis writes the story of her life—from her girlhood in rural Oregon, where she both broke and followed the rules, to her hard-earned self-acceptance at middle age. This Particular Happiness is a gloriously wise memoir about one woman’s unexpected path to becoming.”
—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild

"This deeply engaging memoir wrestles with one of the most important questions of all: Why do we want what we want? Jackie Shannon Hollis explores how her own desires have been shaped by a culture that celebrates 'mother' more than any other role for women, and the possibilities that open up when she chooses not to play the role. A vibrant, absorbing, intimate book."
—Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks

"We all know that having a child changes everything, but so, too, does not having one, and in Hollis’s brave, moving memoir, she explores the bliss, the yearning, the making peace with a life she and her partner chose (and didn't choose), and how happiness takes on shapes we can never imagine. The perfect book for anyone contemplating motherhood—or not!"
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

"This Particular Happiness examines the particularly female journey—how and where do we make room for love? And whether lover, wife, mother, or daughter, how can we be our most authentic selves? Jackie Shannon Hollis explores this rich terrain with clarity and courage, in spare and lovely prose evocative of the high plains landscape and fertile farmland she hails from."
—Jennie Shortridge, author of Love Water Memory

“An ideal memoirist. Her prose is honest and open; she presents herself, with all her shortcomings, in the same direct light as her other characters.”
―The Oregonian

“Jackie Shannon Hollis takes a topic that is typically whispered about and stares at it unflinchingly: a woman’s decision whether or not to have children. She questions the cultural conditioning (told by movies, television, and our families), along with her own biological and emotional responses, that a childless woman is failing to fulfill her destiny. What she excavates during this psychological dig is the truth that what makes any woman’s life successful is the woman herself. A powerful book for both genders and any sexual orientation.”
—Kate Carroll de Gutes, author of The Authenticity Experiment

“Sit down. Make tea. Hold This Particular Happiness by Jackie Shannon Hollis in your hands and read it slowly because she has written you a love letter. Maybe the intimacy in this prose comes from the tender way she observes. Maybe it’s the lyrical prose flexing, revealing the complicated choices one couple makes under the pressures of small towns, big events, changing times, and the relentless pursuit of understanding. Surely, it’s her writing that captures her wanting that is as open as the wheat country that formed her. In this love letter, you will find your own ‘beautiful ache.’”
—Kate Gray, author of Carry the Sky

“In This Particular Happiness, Jackie mines the depths of who she is and how she wants to be in this complicated world. She doesn't settle for the obvious path, and even though there's some disappointment and heartbreak, she learns how to love and be loved in just the way she wants. This book is a celebration of living life using your own damn map.”
—Yuvi Zalkow, author of A Brilliant Novel in the Works

“This Particular Happiness claims an important place in the conversation about what it means to be female, especially a female who doesn’t follow the script written by a traditional rural family. Written in honest and intimate chapters, this stunning debut memoir is ultimately a love letter to the power of choice. It is sure to be a must read for every young woman contemplating a childless future, and a few older women wishing they could be granted a do-over.”
—Sheila Hamilton, author of All the Things We Never Knew

“This Particular Happiness is the eloquent unfolding of Jackie Shannon Hollis’s lifelong understanding of and relationship to her own body: what it could do for her, how it could be used against her, and, ultimately, how she claimed it as her own. Her prose is both achingly beautiful and precise, underscoring the journey of discovering integrity to oneself, and the promise of true love.”
—Liz Prato, author of Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawaii

“This book drew me in from the very first scene and gave me what I want in a memoir: the opportunity to see inside a very particular experience as well as to ponder big questions. What blend of family, culture, and personality inform our expectations? What do we seek from love and intimacy? How do we build defenses against trauma? How do we change? Hollis writes with a clarity and rhythm that makes the reading easy going even as she covers difficult and complex territory. The artful interweaving of storylines and time periods reveals a hard-won wisdom. Any person who has wondered about the path not taken—especially as it relates to child-rearing—will find themselves riveted.”
—Zoe Zolbrod, author of The Telling

“Jackie Shannon Hollis’s This Particular Happiness doesn’t keep secrets. It’s bare-naked honest. What a relief. Another sparkling moment of honesty, what we need, what we crave, what we try to remember.”
—Leanne Grabel, author of Brontosaurus: Memoir of a Sex Life

From the Publisher