During the years that Chloé Caldwell had been married and hoping to conceive a child, she’d read everything she could find on infertility — or, in her case, “unexplained” infertility. But no memoir or message board reflected her experience, especially as most stories ended with success: vitro fertilisation or, you know, an actual baby. Writing in real time, Caldwell talks through the many aspects involved in trying to get pregnant via IUI (Intrauterine Insemination). While teaching writing and working at a store selling “life changing pants,” Caldwell ponders over her well-treaded routine of blood tests and acupuncturists, and generally trying to do everything right. But her journey becomes something else entirely when her husband makes a devastating confession. Broken by his betrayal, Caldwell finds herself freed from domesticity and plunged back into relationships with women while trying to make sense of the last six years of her life. Is her deep desire to have a baby still alive?
In a way, Trying feels like the unofficial sequel to Caldwell’s other memoir, The Red Zone, which follows her experiences with PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder). It’s during this book that we first meet her husband and his daughter, whom Caldwell becomes a stepmother to. Having read all of Caldwell’s published work, I have some background information that heightens the experience of reading Trying in many ways, though that isn’t necessary as the book stands on its own. I still love the way Caldwell writes. It’s chaotic, freeing, and funny, but also very vulnerable and decisive. One of my favourite things is when I’m reading a seemingly normal sentence only to find Caldwell say something completely offhand all of a sudden. It can be funny or devastating — sometimes it’s both.
Another highlight is how grounded Caldwell’s writing feels in the real world. She writes about normal thoughts and activities that would usually be boring, but she finds a way to make them engaging. Her fragmented storytelling is helpful in this way as layers build in a way that is immersive but not overwhelming. She isn’t afraid of being messy and imperfect and isn’t trying to create a particular version of herself, she just is. Caldwell also makes countless references to books, poems, television shows, and even things her friends and family have said. This only adds further to the depth and connection we feel as a reader. Through Caldwell’s experience, we are right there with her, as though part of the family.
Despite the humour, there’s an emotional weight to Caldwell’s writing considering the subject matter, which becomes darker when she discovers what her husband has been doing behind her back—and how long for. With the deadline for her book approaching, this isn’t where Caldwell thought her journey would end. She’s honest as she writes about the multiple facets of grief she’s experiencing and questions what she should do in relation to the book itself. What happens when a book is without resolution? Caldwell asks, what is the reader owed and what is the writer owed? But she doesn’t have any answers. In an interview with The Masters Review, she says: “My books are questions.” Caldwell’s memoirs and essay collections, as well as her semi-autobiographical best selling novella, Women, are slices of life that best capture the funny, imperfect, and troubling complexities of real life. They bring forth an authenticity that is highly relatable, which is what allows Caldwell’s writing to reach so many people. You don’t have to be trying to conceive to get something out of Caldwell’s latest memoir.
Trying will be published via VERVE Books in the UK on 27th November 2025, but the Kindle version is available tomorrow, 13th November 2025. The book is already out in the US.
Leave a Reply