"Laura Jean Baker has written a beautiful and brave memoir of motherhood and its discontents, which are indistinguishable from its joys. This is a warmly intimate yet intellectually provocative personal document of originality and considerable charm." —Joyce Carol Oates With the birth of her first child, soon-to-be professor Laura Jean Baker finds herself electrified by oxytocin, the "love hormone"—the first effective antidote to her lifelong depression. Over the next eight years, her "oxy" cravings, and her family, only grow—to the dismay of her husband, Ryan, a freelance public defender. As her reckless baby–making threatens her family's middle–class existence, Baker identifies more and more with Ryan's legal clients, often drug–addled fellow citizens of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Is she any less desperate for her next fix? Baker is in an impossible bind: The same drive that sustains her endangers her family;...