Toni Morrison wrote that you can’t understand the history of America unless you understand the history of African American women.
Reading The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét, I see why.
The Toni Morrison quote acts as an epigraph for what I found to be a thoughtful, elegant, and profound memoir.
It’s also an honest account of motherhood and the challenges that come with it (as well as the joys).
Given my somewhat limited experience of being a mother, I thankfully had the brilliant writer Anna Whitwham to help me navigate and explore the subject, and Sasha Bonét’s often moving memoir. (Anna’s book on motherhood, Soft Tissue Damage, is also excellent, btw.)
Indeed, welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.
As you may well know by now, in each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books and culture to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.
There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.
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In this episode, as I say, my very special guest is the writer Anna Whitwham, author of Boxer Handsome and Soft Tissue Damage. We discuss her pick for the library, the 2025 memoir The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét.
About Anna
Anna Whitwham was born in 1981 in London, where she still lives. She studied Drama and English at the University of California, Los Angeles, Queens University Belfast and at Royal Holloway, London where she teaches a course called ‘Writing Men: The Burden of Masculinity’. She is the author of Boxer Handsome (Chatto & Windus), and her latest book, Soft Tissue Damage, was published by Rough Trade Books in 2025.
About Sasha
Sasha Bonét is a writer and cultural critic based in New York City. Her criticism and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Aperture, New York Magazine, Vogue, and BOMB, among other publications. Bonét is a professor of creative writing for Columbia University and Barnard College. The Waterbearers will be published in the UK by Penguin.
Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode
Pre-order The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét and pick up a copy of Anna’s most recent book, Soft Tissue Damage, from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.
Find Anna Whitwham on Instagram here.
Find Sasha Bonét on Instagram here.
Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.
Find The Library of Lazy Thinking on Instagram here.
About the Library
The Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. If you’d like to support the library and get access to everything here, you can become a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark, sticker, and pin badge). All support goes back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.
About Glenn
Glenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and artists here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Meanwhile, I am currently working on my first novel about a delivery driver who accidentally kidnaps a pig. Brave/bold agents: hit me up.
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