In Lifeform, Jenny Slate explores motherhood and her inner critic

20:44Jenny Slate: How her new book tackles motherhood and self-criticism

Jenny Slate is an actor, writer and comedian who you may know as the voice and co-creator of the stop motion character Marcel the Shell. Earlier this year, Slate mined her pregnancy experience for her latest stand-up special, Seasoned Professional. Now, she's released a new book of essays, Lifeform, which explores the same theme but with a slightly different tone.

The collection takes a whimsical, genre-bending and humorous look at the past few years of her life, from getting married to having her first child during the pandemic. It's broken down into five chronological sections: Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby and Ongoing.

In an interview with Q's Tom Power, Slate says she struggled to identify as a writer for a long time because of her unique style, which she describes as "syncopated" and "melodic."

"One of the most exciting things is that I've been able to isolate and understand the beauty of my own intensity and to stop criticising myself for it, but instead work with it," she explains.

In Lifeform, Slate also addresses her inner critic. Growing up in the 1980s, she internalised the idea that if she wanted to be successful, she'd have to be critical of herself and others. "I heard people that were really important to me criticize themselves," she says. "I saw a lot of women especially using criticism as a way to convince themselves that they were feeling powerful and pointing out flaws in other people."

While she's still critical of her own work and self, Slate no longer feels "required to do that."

"What I say to myself is you are not required to bare your teeth at your own image," she says. "And that's what I wish I had said to my younger self and to any artist starting out."

On motherhood

In her conversation with Power, Slate reads a passage from a piece from Lifeform, titled "The Great Conjunction." The essay addresses her young daughter as Slate wonders if she's aware that they are each their own persons.

"I'm your mother and you were born for me, but I am myself," she says about the essay's central message.

"A lot of people somehow want to believe or need to say that people change if they become pregnant or give birth," Slate says. "And then it can be really weird if you yourself sort of unconsciously believed that and then you give birth and you're still yourself."

The full interview with Jenny Slate is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Jenny Slate produced by Cora Nijhawan.