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 | Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder {Reviewed by STELLA} Being a mother of an active and non-sleeping toddler who refuses to sleep in his own bed can drive the best of us into a frenzy of frustration and hopelessness. Combine this with a husband who as the bread-winner is claiming a special dispensation from the trials of day-to-day care and you start to see a picture emerge. Add in the fact that the mother has abandoned her plan to be a multi-tasking goddess who can work, create and nurture all in one gulp and you have the perfect storm. Yoder isn’t telling us anything new about motherhood, but she is providing a hilarious take on the soul-destroying tiredness of parenthood. When the mother notices a rough patch of hair at her nape, a pointed sharpness to her teeth and a certain canine fascination, she is at first disturbed, then embraces it, dubbing herself Nightbitch. Embracing her feral self gives new dimensions to her mothering and her role as a wife, much to her husband’s surprise. There are some excellent and very funny moments in this novel. Embracing her doggy-ness gives her, and by extension her son, a playfulness in her interactions with the world and her child. They bark, chase, tumble and playfight to their hearts’ content. Her appetite for meat, red meat, is endless and there is an excellent scene at the local cafe. Nightbitch piles up her plate with meaty treats and starts eating, initially with her fork, then with her hands, until in full animal mode she is face down, chomping up her lunch. It’s all a glorious game to her young son. Yet this isn’t a novel with only hilarity: even while Yoder cleverly pokes fun at the middle classes, the ‘mummy sets’ and the social mores perpetuated by media and peer pressure, not to mention familial expectations, there is always an undercurrent of the danger. The monster or more precisely the beast within, and depending on your take of this situation whether you read Nightbitch as ‘real’ or an animalistic psychological state, the beast outed, is liberating and controlling. It gives the mother a sense of freedom but also expels her from part of herself, and her relationship with her son and husband is on the brink of disaster on several occasions. Nightbitch is not for the faint-hearted. Think fluffy cats and innocent bunnies. Violence is never too far from the heart of the mother’s new persona—a violence born out of anger and desperation. Anger at the curtailed life of clean, wash, tidy and constant care of a small human, who she does adore. And desperation at her seeming failure to keep all her ambitions, particularly her independence and creative practice, alive. Like a Kafkaesque exploration, yet more in line with some of Angela Carter’s feminist writing, Nightbitch is ambitious with its desire to come to grips with the female psyche under pressure. The ability to find a way out of the mayhem is at the core of the changing roles of women as they confront the wall that demarks the moment of before and after motherhood. Enjoy and wallow in its humour but watch out for the bite that comes with this joyous bark! |