Here’s the set-up, for those who don’t know: I have a book coming out this month. It is called Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood. It’s being published by The Free Press, which is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, which still freaks my shit out to type.

In so many ways, this project has become my third baby, one that needs all kinds of special care that I am ill prepared to give. The gestation was a heck of a lot longer than either of my flesh babies combined. I can date this book’s conception to a day when my daughter, who is now four, was four-months-old.

The book wasn’t a baby that I was sure that I wanted at first. After all, this baby, which is all about my family, my psych ward vacation and my insecurities, isn’t exactly the kind of pretty that you want to show off to the world. But at some point I realized that parents – and, especially, mothers – are indoctrinated against ever admitting that child-rearing isn’t always gorgeous, that sometimes we are ugly and our kids are, too. This is one of the last taboos we face, I think. Sites like AustinMama.com and magazines like Brain, Child help let a little light in, but it is still shameful to cop to anything even a little bit raw after you’ve popped out a youngling.

Still, it’s an uncomfortable place to be. I am on the verge of having all of this information about my craziness sitting on a shelf in bookstores. Libraries will have cataloged it. I have managed to convince myself that only four people in the universe will ever choose to read the thing and that three of those will be reviewers who are paid to do so. I know that’s not true, however. I’m not expecting Da Vinci Code-esque numbers but suspect the number of readers may hit triple digits. I find this terrifying.

I know that this confession will garner no sympathy. I am not asking for any, frankly. I’m approaching my impending publication with the same state of mind that I’ve approached my impending births. I am thrilled, mostly, with a side order of completely terrified. I wonder what I will unleash upon the world and if my baby will use his or her gifts for good rather than evil. And I have even less control over my paper infant – which isn’t to imply that I have all that much control over my biological kids. I do, however, almost always know who they are with.

The same holds true for the book. When enveloped in the process of finding an agent (six months), writing a proposal and selling it (two years or so), writing the book (six months, of which a good three months was spent procrastinating) and navigating the mechanical process of proof and printing (seven months), it’s hard to stay aware of what you are actually going to have at the end of the journey. Now that I hold the product in my hands, I’m wondering if this was really one of my better ideas. And, yes, I had that same thought during the first few weeks of each new baby’s life. Both of those turned out to be my best ideas ever. My hope is that this publishing adventure will be similarly positive.

What’s different this time is that I don’t think my extended family will be nearly as thrilled with this baby as they were with the first two. This baby, since it is all about me and my failings, is also directly about them and their failings, too. It is a book about repercussions of the past beating like a big bass drum in one’s present. My spouse, of course, was one of the first to see the manuscript and may be my most strident supporter. His parents were complimentary. My dad appears to be thrilled with idea that I am a published book writer but found the book itself “difficult” to read. I don’t blame him. If my kid had written about her thoughts of suicide, I’d find it difficult to read as well. (An aside: that’s one of the reasons I wrote the book. If my daughter ever finds herself in a similar position, I want her to a) know that this is nothing new for the women of our bloodline and b) encounter just one person who might have a little more sympathy for the mentally ill because he/she read my book or one like it. Another reason I wrote the book is if I find myself once again in the same spot someone will have a road map to find me.)

The more eagle-eyed will note that I’ve not included my mother’s response. There is a simple reason for that: I am a big fat pussy. At least ten percent of the book is about how her mental illness and denial about it affected me as a kid. I can’t imagine that she’ll be thrilled about what I’ve had to say. But she is generally unthrilled by what I have to say – so much so that she frequently decides to not speak to me for months on end – that it’s hard to know how this will affect our relationship, such as it is. I feel appropriately bad about being a crappy daughter who can’t stand by her mom no matter what and I know how much I suck on this whole topic. I also know that silence won’t do anyone any good, especially my own offspring. I also feel appropriately crappy that this is how I make my living. But there it is.