Depictions of postpartum depression and psychosis are surprisingly infrequent in literature, given the many memoirs and novels featuring mental illness, trauma, and ambivalent mothers published since the 1990s. One vivid exception is Helen Dunmore’s 1996 novel Talking to the Dead, which masterfully depicts the postpartum psychosis experienced by Isabel, as narrated by her younger sister, Nina. The scant criticism on this novel assesses the connection of bodies and their cultural connotations to the readerly interpretation, as well as the portrayal of the trauma experienced by the sisters. While briefly mentioning Isabel’s postpartum depression, the criticism doesn’t delve into the cultural implications of representing this postpartum experience and its rarer, more dangerous cousin, postpartum psychosis. I explore how Nina’s narration of her sister’s postpartum experiences both clarifies and obfuscates Isabel’s postpartum psychosis because of Nina’s own dawning realization about the two sisters’ culpability in their infant brother’s death.