(Video Courtesy of Pottawattamie Arts, Culture and Entertainment's YouTube channel)
“How many generations of women had delayed their greatness only to have time extinguish it completely? How many women had run out of time while the men didn’t know what to do with theirs? And what a mean trick to call such things holy or selfless. How evil to praise women for giving up each and every dream.”
Metaphors, metaphors, metaphors. You either love or hate them, use them frequently and flamboyantly or prefer a more down-to-earth approach, but the truth is: a good metaphor can really add to a story, and a well thought one can make it entirely. We know and love The Metamorphosis, Kafka’s most famous book and an extraordinary classic, in which the protagonist wakes up one day to discover he had turned into a cockroach. That transformation, of course, is a metaphor. Turns out, in order to express certain feelings and conditions exquisitely, one must compare oneself to a cockroach. Or, in Nightb*tch’s case, a dog.
Some readers consider Nightb*tch to be a modern, feminist version of the Metamorphosis, and that criticism alone made me giggle with excitement to read this book.
Now, Nightb*tch may first alarm you, with most of its US covers presenting 3 pieces of raw meat in front of a red background - heading straight to the point and revealing the book’s gruesome nature from first glance (that’s without mentioning the title itself, which can scare off your standard reader). With a quick look to the book’s summary on its back, we understand this so-called gruesomeness is not what it looks - and with that, we are buckling in for a sweeping journey of motherhood and abandoned dreams, exploring the harsh reality of being a mum.
(The novel will soon be adapted into film starring Amy Adams. Video by THR /YouTube )
Nightb*tch follows a nameless narrator, her husband and their toddler. It’s a tale as old as time: He’s never home, never cares, she swore she’d make her comeback as a career woman once the baby is born, did not, turned into a housewife. She often finds herself envying other women, women who picked themselves up after giving birth and got right back on track. The Working Mothers - a name she holds much disdain for. (“…I think working mother is perhaps the most nonsensical concept ever concocted. I mean, who isn’t a working mother? And then add a paid job to it, so what are you then? A working working mother? Imagine saying working father.”) She never showers, she’s unmotivated and sad, and her son (although being her favourite thing in this whole wide world) is making her a person she’d never thought she’d be.
Motherhood, although seen as a gift, can strip you off the traits you once held with pride when you were your own person. As she grows more and more miserable with her situation, with her no-show husband and demanding child and judgmental peers: The Mother finds out that motherhood can drive you wild. Some may say, animalistic.
She begins experiencing strange symptoms. Her hair is growing thick and dishevelled, her canines sharpen like knives and she craves blood in a way that would make Count Dracula himself shiver with fright. Anxiously, she researches what that means, shamefully typing “am I turning into a dog?” in Google’s search bar (and probably giving a Google employee something to worry about.) She tells her husband, but why would he believe her? Certainly she’s just stressed, her menstrual cycle is causing this somehow. It takes her a certain amount of irregular appetite and a few small animals to realise:
She is, indeed, turning into a dog.
The Mother is no longer The Mother. She is now Nightb*tch (surprise, surprise). This change of name signifies a change of heart, an embrace of the dark and feral instead of the avoidance of it. Much like The Metamorphosis, where Gregor’s transformation is a metaphor for how insignificant he’s been made to feel, Nightb*tch’s own animalistic journey is a metaphor for how inhuman she’s been made to feel. How, by turning into an Overworked Mother, she shed her previous title as human and descended into canines and fur.
Nightb*tch is an excellently done reflection on the thin line between human and animal, and what might throw you over said line. This feminist masterpiece is definitely, most certainly getting into my faves. I would recommend it if you enjoy: A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers, body horror, weird people and additional profound empathy for your mum.
Overall Marianne Rating: a very solid 10/10.
Grotesquely,
Marianne
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