Emathy (My Unborn Child) by David Lee Condrey

Emathy (My Unborn Child) is an upcoming novel from David Lee Condrey. A typo leads professor Tom Dalloway to envision a fictional daughter, and this becomes how he processes his life, love, and grief.

Emathy becomes both his fragile hope and his mirror, drawing him into a deeper reckoning with loss, love, and the meaning of care. As Tom moves through illness and connection, the novel explores profound themes of fatherhood, mortality, grief, moral responsibility, and the urgent need for empathy in a fractured world. Blending raw confession with quiet magic, Emathyinvites readers to question what it means to create, to protect, and to heal.

The book isn’t out yet, but one chapter, My Womb Is A Scar is available on Medium. In this chapter, the couple is discovering that they won’t be able to have genetic children. The reason is simple and complicated at once. Here’s a good example of the writing style and overall vibe.

San Diego traffic performed its usual interpretation of purgatory — sudden accelerations into nowhere, grinding halts that lasted geological epochs. Trader Joe’s parking lot became refuge. Their cheerful Hawaiian shirts and aggressive friendliness felt obscene against my news, but I couldn’t face our house. Not yet.

Miranda answered before the second ring. “Catastrophic?”

“Remember the summer we attempted tomatoes? Everything withered despite religious watering?”

“Ah. Agricultural metaphors. That catastrophic.”

“My reproductive system has achieved desert status. Death Valley, but for progeny.”

“Come home. I’ll massacre enough garlic to resurrect you.”

“Vampire-genocide levels?”

“Extinction event. The pasta won’t know what hit it.”

If you’re curious about new and indie fiction, and especially if you like discovering books that don’t quite fit the mold, Emathy might be for you. Read the first chapter online now, or see Condrey’s other pieces over on Medium.