Mother Ship: Francesca Segal and Olivia Laing

‘Every new baby is its own crisis.’ The ‘mother ship’ of Francesca Segal’s memoir is the neonatal intensive care unit where she was confined for fifty-six days after the premature birth of her twin girls. Mother Ship (Chatto and Windus) is at once a celebration of female friendship, a medical thriller and a love poem to Segal’s daughters, from the acclaimed author of The Innocents and The Awkward Age. Segal was in conversation with Olivia Laing, whose first novel, Crudo, was published last year.