The collage of green-hued horror, the shadowy hand, but most of all the jellied salmon.
The title transforming "mothering" to the more monstrous Mother/Thing.
The subject: a couple haunted (in very different ways) by a mother/in law and the promise of a unique recipe for chicken a la king.
How can a book live up to this?
The book begins in an emergency room, where Abby and her husband wait for an update on his mother, who has just cut her wrists in their basement (not conveniently in a bathtub, Abby thinks later). Abby and Ralph are coping by joking about a hot tub of diarrhea, specifically baby diarrhea. It's a lot, and you will either appreciate the dark, sometimes gross sense of humor or you won't.
The story kept me guessing. What would the balance be between horror and comedy? Humor turns out to be Abby's coping mechanism, one that grows in mania throughout the course of the novel, climaxing in an outrageous work lunch-room interaction.
I won't say more about the book, other than that I really enjoyed it and the ending surprised me.
- Michael G.
No comments:
Post a Comment