From the award-winning author of Another Appalachia, an intimate portrait of queer motherhood and mother-loss—with meditations on grief, familial legacies, and selfhood
In Becoming Ammi, author and educator Neema Avashia reflects on a new stage of life: becoming a parent.
Through short reflective chapters, Avashia weaves together stories of early motherhood as a Desi, queer, Appalachian, and non-gestational parent (a parent who did not physically carry or give birth to the child).
Becoming Ammi is shaped by by Avashia’s real-time reflections written like diary entries—some fully formed, written during the quiet of 3 a.m. feedings, while others are fragmented, scribbled down in the small moments she could carve out each day. Together, the essays culminate into a deeply personal meditation on her transforming sense of self.
Written in 3 parts, the book explores:
- Avashia’s new relationship with her daughter
- Questions of integrating her old life into her new one
- Becoming a mother while losing her own
Intimate and candid, Avashia’s story will speak to anyone who does not feel like they fit into the traditional framework of “parent.”
“Like all great books by parents, this one is at once a love letter to a new child and to a new self. In becoming Ammi to her daughter, Avashia steps wide-eyed into queer Desi motherhood and all of its beautiful moments and messy questions about selfhood, belonging, and familial connection. This is a memoir of parenthood both tender and forceful, for readers of Rivka Galchen’s Little Labors and Sarah Ruhl’s 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write. I want to push it into every expecting parent’s hands.”
—Krys Malcolm Belc, author of The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood
“Avashia’s remarkable book explores the generational wisdom and trauma we see so clearly once our own children are placed in our arms. Moving, hilarious, and boundary-pushing, Becoming Ammi feels like a box of letters from a friend: A friend who is at once parent, writer, and cultural worker. A friend who holds their Appalachian and Gujarati identities with pride. A friend who reveals with tenderness, humor, and fierceness the way the world interacts with queer non-gestational parenthood. This book is both a telling of truth and an act of courage.”
—Bushra Rehman, author of Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion
“Through snapshots from the first three years of her daughter’s life, Avashia draws out both what you can see and what simmers beneath the surface. Becoming a parent allows her to see her queerness (and other identities) differently, and queerness allows her to see parenting differently. Going through the deep grief of losing her own mother so early in her parenting journey adds depth and nuance. She writes with such tender awareness about the beautiful way that queerness offers a lesson for everyone in how we choose what to carry with us, what to pass along, and what to put down. We can be deeply authentic. We can grapple with the world we live in. We can find new ways to nurture. For anyone who has listened to Brandi Carlile’s ‘The Mother’ on repeat, this book draws from the same well.”
—Emily Pullen, manager of reader services, New York Public Library
“Neema Avashia’s Becoming Ammi is a beautiful, stirring meditation on the earthshaking experience of new motherhood, as both a mother and a daughter—the poetry and the agony, the grappling for oneself amidst change, the new self that is forever changed. This is an illuminating parenting memoir full of heart, soul, and remarkable insights.”
—Deesha Philyaw, author of The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman
“Becoming Ammi is a beautiful, compelling reflection of Avashia’s journey through the complexities of parenthood being a queer, Indian, nongestational parent. Each chapter pulls you in, hugs you tightly, and releases you, providing a brief moment to sit with and take in what you just read. This book is a must-read for expecting queer parents, nongestational parents, and/or queer people who have children in their lives, whether they are Guncles or Aunties, because Avashia’s story reminds us that a child’s love is expansive and that your DNA doesn’t have to be directly tied to a child in order for a loving bond to grow and exist.”
—Christina Pascucci-Ciampa, All She Wrote Books