Boulder by Eva Baltasar

This was short listed for the 2023 International Booker Prize--which is a list that I have not read in an intentional way, and that might have been a now rectified mistake. This is short, really more of a novella than a full on book, and it is very good. The author is a poet, so maybe the length seems long from that perspective! Boulder is a horny, chain-smoking cook working on a merchant ship off the coast of southern Chile when we meet her. She is rough and tumble and not ready to settle down until she comes to know and love Samsa, a woman who gives her her nickname and a reason to settle down. She abandons a life at sea for a small apartment in Reykjavik, where the couple move after Samsa accepts a job offer. While Samsa works 10 hours a day, Boulder struggles to acclimate to the routine of a daily life that conflicts with her consoling solitude. Then, after almost eight years together, and nearing 40, Samsa decides that she wants to have a child. What happens next will be all too familiar to any couple who have gone through this, especially if one of them is all in on parenthood and the other more tepid. Everyone who is not contemplating parenthood should read this.