How ‘Surrender’ by Jennifer Acker Got Made

In this week's edition of Endnotes, we take a look at Jennifer Acker's Surrender, which follows a woman who retreats from academic life in New York City to manage a family goat farm. “ Surrender is a story close to my heart and personal experiences, especially my childhood in rural Maine.

When I was a teenager, several of my mother’s friends left their husbands and started new lives with women. This, plus the death of my farmer father a couple of years ago, inspired me to write about a middle-aged woman who dramatically changes course—for love, and to save the family farm.” “Jennifer Acker, who was between agents, reached out to me directly about her forthcoming novel.

Having read the author’s earlier work, I was not expecting a novel about raising goats, something I knew nothing about but which I found not just compelling but in places deeply touching.” “ Surrender is a breath of fresh air in that it tackles, with intimacy, a woman’s midlife.

Coming of age in midlife is less often written about and yet, with the richness and texture of additional lived experience, often so very much more interesting.” “When I finished the manuscript, I knew there needed to be goats, and that the jacket needed to be pink.

The main character, Lucy, and the goats of Surrender find their way to one another. And while the goats bring immeasurable fulfillment, and set Lucy on a life-changing and beautiful path, it is complicated. The reader will find goats everywhere: casually lounging on the title, standing on top of the barcode, observing the flap copy.”