REVIEW: Motherthing
Popular, non-horror depictions of grief show a woman lying prostrate on her bed, crying delicately into a pillow or looking out the window of a train car as it rains. But real grief is sticky and viscous; real grief is oily, unwashed hair; real grief is a weighted blanket. We turn to horror when life is too disgusting to write poetry about.
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Abby Lamb doesn’t talk much. She’s a little off, but still easy to work with, to live with, to marry, at least until her bitch mother-in-law commits suicide and subsequently comes back from the dead. That’s when Abby’s inner thoughts (about eating her husband or smashing a tray of jellied salmon against her coworker’s head) start interfering with her weird haunted life. Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth is an exploration of grief, narcissistic mothers, and how to cook the perfect chicken à la king.
One of the more surprising things about grief is the mundanity of it all. When someone ceases to exist, it seems only fair that the world stops turning, at least for a little while. But after the initial shock of finding her mother-in-law bleeding out on the carpet, Abby and Ralph have to deal with funeral directors, bereavement days, and how long to let your coworkers hug you when you return. The only difference with the Lambs is that Ralph swears up and down that his mother has come back from the dead. Even through this, Hogarth writes, “We change into our pajamas as soon as we get home because that’s what we always do, no matter who’s haunting the basement.” Anything can become normal if we give it time.
Ralph experiences a unique type of pain: grieving a narcissistic, abusive mother. Despite how she treated him (almost incestually) and his wife (cruelly), he falls into himself and is devastated by the loss. Abby grew up with a terrible mother as well, who was consumed with the need to be needed by men. Despite her estrangement from and hatred of her mother, Abby similarly wants Ralph to let go of his devotion to his mother and rely solely on her instead. Abby’s forced connection to anything that can resemble a mother culminates in her slowly hatching a plan to rid the Lambs of their demons, one that comes to fruition by the end after some of the most shudder-inducing descriptions I’ve read in horror. (Ask my roommate: I made several involuntary noises while reading this).
Despite the heavy topic of Motherthing, Hogarth’s writing is darkly funny. Comedy and horror often go hand in hand due to the absurdity of the human existence captured in both genres. Who hasn’t felt laughter bubble up inside of them during a moment of silence? Who hasn’t had to pinch themselves to keep focus during their own father’s memorial service? (Too niche?) By putting gross, embarrassing, hard-to-admit ideas into words, horror and comedy give life to deeply human traits. They allow us to forgive ourselves for perceived social faux pas, because everyone sucks in the same ways. Isn’t that nice?
RATING: ☆☆☆☆☆