Motherhood

I’m not a mom, but as y’all know, that decision or circumstance is just as loaded with feminist biases as any decision or circumstance inhabited by a woman. Regardless, motherhood, the concept of being completely in charge of another human life, is absolutely terrifying. Because, like, what if you get it wrong?

I know I’m not the only one with this paranoia because 1: I’ve heard about it my whole life from various moms; and 2: literature is obsessed with the trope (think Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson, or even the film Alien); and 3: as soon as I got to my car after watching Darren Aronofsky’s 2017 film mother! I started crying. I don’t know why. I just did, okay?

By the way, I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and you’re in The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s latest and greatest in horror. Join me, won’t you, in this realm of horror, an observance of Mothers’ Day.

Earworm: “K-Hole” by CocoRosie

Fresh Hells (FKA new releases):

“Orange World” in Orange World by Karen Russell

Though every story in this collection is fascinating, this one focuses on what happens when a woman makes a deal with a devil to preserve her geriatric pregnancy.

 

 

 

This Is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home by Lauren Sandler

I suppose this isn’t horror in its most distilled sense, but this reported chronicle of one homeless woman’s life for a year, “as she navigates the labyrinth of poverty and homelessness in New York City” definitely qualifies for real fear among stories of survival.

 

The Need by Helen Phillips

When mother of two, Molly, hears an intruder in her home, she first attributes it to her sleep deprivation. Then she realizes that the trespasser knows far too much about her family. This novel embodies “the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity” of motherhood.

 

 

Cryptkeepers (FKA horrors from the backlist):

Bloodchild by Octavia Butler

Our classic favorite speculative fiction author, Octavia Butler, composed these six short stories in her collection Bloodchild. The titular story is “set on a distant planet where human children spend their lives preparing to become hosts for the offspring of the alien Tlic. Sometimes the procedure is harmless, but often it is not.”

 

“Summer” by Tananarive Due

Danielle takes care of her infant, Lola, while her husband is at National Guard Army training. She swats a fly that does not move, twice, and she sees it as an omen, in her grandmother’s voice: “Anything can happen once… When it happens twice—listen. The third time may be too late.”

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

This retelling of the Snow White story comes from the perspective of the evil stepmother, who learns only because of the birth of her first daughter that her husband’s family is Black. Though the stepmother loves her stepdaughter, Snow, rather than send away her own daughter for the darkness of her skin (as her husband’s family has been doing), she sends away Snow.

Harbingers (FKA news):

Speaking of content with a focus on motherhood, there’s a new reveal about the surrealist self-portraitist and cultural icon Frida Kahlo! What would you do if a stranger revealed that she had an affair with your father?

What’s going on with this witchy literary trend on TikTok?

During these quarantined times, our generations-long obsession with writers’ houses expands even wider.

Looks like a lot of writers hear their characters’ voices in their heads… and believe that the characters have agency of their own.

I know we can’t really leave the house right now, but Seattle has a troll under one of its bridges.

Want to read the fake news article that almost ruined Lizzie Borden?

These 7 spectacular and spooky libraries have virtual tours available for you.

Halloween’s David Gordon Green is directing an “elevated” Hellraiser series for HBO.

Want to know how indie bookstores are faring in this hellscape?

Check out this list of crime novels set amid plagues and pandemics.

One of my first horror loves was Alvin Schwarz and Stephen Gammel’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I had the whole set (viva Scholastic Book Fairs!). Now, we’re getting another film adaptation installment!

Until next week, follow me @mkmcbrayer for minute-to-minute horrors or if you want to ask for a particular theme to a newsletter. I’m also on IG @marykaymcbrayer. Happy Mothers’ Day to you and yours!

Your Virgil,

 

Mary Kay McBrayer
Co-host of Book Riot’s literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing