Meet Me at the Lake

Meet Me at the Lake explores dynamics of motherhood and parenthood. Fortune is a mother of two. As she explains in her “Behind the Book” essay: “I didn’t set out to explore the ways parenthood shapes us—perhaps that’s what happens when you begin writing a book about a mother and daughter a few months after having your second baby” (317). Fortune channeled different aspects of herself and her experiences as a mother and daughter into the characters of Meet Me at the Lake. She describes experiencing her own mental health conditions after her first child was born. Her decision to give Will postpartum anxiety, or postpartum OCD, was a way to bring attention to their overwhelming and intrusive nature, and how they “can affect not only birth parents but adoptive parents and anyone in a parenting role: people such as Will” (318).

Fortune ends the book with an epilogue revealing Fern’s pregnancy. This highlights how postpartum conditions don’t exclude one from pursuing the joys of parenthood. Fortune feels motherhood has fulfilled her as a person, and the challenges she dealt with after both her children were born were worthwhile. Fortune also ends with Fern’s pregnancy to give Fern a path forward. Fern’s own relationship with her mother was complicated, but Fern writes about continuing some of their traditions once her daughter is born. Fortune “wanted to give Fern the opportunity to forge her own path as a mother—to decide what elements of her relationship with her mom she wanted to preserve and what she would do differently” (320). Fortune’s experiences as a mother are interwoven in the novel’s dynamics between Maggie and Fern, and Will and Sofia, imparting a complicated view of the joys and pitfalls of parenthood.