Jules, newly divorced, sits at home cradling a baby twenty-four hours and seventeen minutes old and feeds him colostrum from a syringe. The baby’s cry feels like a howl of rejection to Jules, who has no language to prove she is right for him. The birth mother, Nim, leaves the hospital shortly after being stitched and vanishes, prompting the police to ask questions; Nim has a history of running away. Set in Brighton, Jules had longed for a child after failing to conceive with alcoholic ex-husband Leon, whose serial cheating included Nim. Jules and Nim moved in together after Nim discovered her pregnancy, creating a fraught domestic arrangement that exposes longing, addiction, and fractured intimacy.
Gunk opens with new divorcee Jules sitting at home cradling a baby who is 24 hours and 17 minutes old, feeding him colostrum from a syringe. After being fed, the baby cries, which Jules interprets as a howl of rejection: He has no language to tell me I'm not right for him. We learn that Jules isn't the child's biological parent; the birth mother is Nim who, shortly after being stitched up, left the hospital ward and seemingly vanished.
Where that book examined the lives of girls coming of age, Gunk has an older heroine in Jules, who is desperate to have a child. Her alcoholic ex-husband, Leon, who ran a student nightclub and with whom she tried and failed to conceive, cheated on her multiple times with his young staff. When one of the bartenders he slept with, Nim, discovered she was pregnant, she and Jules came to an arrangement and moved in together.
The narrator is the actor Lizzie Schenk, who imbues Sams's protagonists with depth and humanity. A poignant tale of motherhood and partnerships reimagined, Gunk shows how life can be simultaneously messy and beautiful. For Jules, life had been small and dark before Nim prised her way inside and detonated it. All around me were smithereens. I looked up, and found scraps of sky.
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