Fron­tier. The word invokes images of bor­ders and bound­aries, ter­ri­to­ries on the out­skirts. What an apt title for Eri­ca Stern’s new book that fear­less­ly push­es the lim­its of thought, struc­ture, and craft. In Fron­tier: a Mem­oir and a Ghost Sto­ry, Stern mas­ter­ful­ly tells two sto­ries — or two visions of one. Mem­oir chap­ters titled ​“Chica­go” alter­nate with those titled ​“Wild West,” a ghost sto­ry set in fron­tier days. 

The book begins with Stern in an Uber on the way to a hema­tol­o­gist. She is in her eighth month of preg­nan­cy and her platelets have dropped. Stern is expe­ri­enc­ing pain but is not sure what to make of it; like women through­out his­to­ry, she is shamed into doubt­ing her body’s sig­nals. Yet, her instincts are not wrong. In the very first chap­ter, we bear wit­ness to her dif­fi­cult labor and for­ceps deliv­ery. Soon, Stern learns dev­as­tat­ing news: her baby has suf­fered a seri­ous brain injury.

In the Chica­go chap­ters, read­ers jour­ney with Stern through the baby’s first days in the most crit­i­cal sec­tion of the NICU and the peri­od imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing. A sim­ple recount­ing of these events would keep read­ers riv­et­ed, but what makes the mem­oir even more com­pelling are the frag­ments inter­spersed through­out: Stern reflects on God and Jew­ish super­sti­tion and law. She details the trou­bling his­to­ry of the nat­ur­al child­birth move­ment, mid­wifery, and for­ceps. She cri­tiques the birthing indus­try, which she refers to as Big Birthing, includ­ing doulas, pre­na­tal yoga, the What to Expect books, and the pro­lif­er­a­tion of baby ​“neces­si­ties” — all of which per­pet­u­ate a fairy tale of preg­nan­cy, birth, and moth­er­hood that her own expe­ri­ence does not replicate. 

The med­ical estab­lish­ment, also com­plic­it, sep­a­rates Stern and her hus­band from those whose birthing expe­ri­ences are with­out com­pli­ca­tion: ​“My new bed on the post­par­tum floor is in a con­tain­ment room reserved for peo­ple with dan­ger­ous, com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases.… My body’s tox­i­c­i­ty isn’t con­ta­gious but my mind might be.” While Stern recalls read­ing about rapid-fire cell divi­sions that occur in utero, she also feels her­self split­ting — detach­ing from her body and experience. 

Enter the ​“Wild West” ghost sto­ry, an account of a woman from long ago who dies in child­birth along with her baby. Now float­ing in lim­bo, the woman tries des­per­ate­ly to reach her son. These chap­ters pro­vide a stun­ning com­ple­ment to Stern’s own expe­ri­ence of feel­ing as though she is float­ing ghost-like. Because of her baby’s crit­i­cal con­di­tion, Stern is ini­tial­ly unable to hold him and exists in ​“a space between grief and moth­er­hood, life and mem­o­ry.” A turn­ing point arrives when it’s time to name her son. Stern and her hus­band choose the name Jon­ah because they like it: “… only lat­er do we real­ize the sym­bol­ic sig­nif­i­cance of bib­li­cal Jon­ah, a prophet in mor­tal dan­ger deep inside the bel­ly of the whale before being spit onto dry land.” 

In her acknowl­edge­ments, Stern thanks edi­tors for believ­ing in her project’s ​“weird­ness.” Yet, Fron­tier feels less ​“weird” than wild­ly cre­ative, a bril­liant exam­ple of form mir­ror­ing con­tent. Because trau­ma and its after­ef­fects are not expe­ri­enced in a straight line, Stern’s struc­tur­al choic­es prove incred­i­bly effec­tive at por­tray­ing a sto­ry of trau­ma and sur­vival. Her ques­tions and reflec­tions on var­ied mul­ti­ple texts and her weav­ing in of dyb­buks add inher­ent­ly Jew­ish ele­ments. Fron­tier is a pow­er­ful, dual account of a woman and her fam­i­ly nav­i­gat­ing treach­er­ous ter­rain with­out a map. Thank­ful­ly, they even­tu­al­ly find their way out of a lone­ly and ter­ri­fy­ing lim­bo and onto sol­id ground.