Review: 'Motherthing' by Ainslie Hogarth

What if your mother-in-law, who very obviously despised you, begins to haunt you and your husband after her death? What if your husband seems incapable of drawing himself out of the dark? And what if everything else also falls apart? In the middle of this mess is where Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth will absolutely blow your mind! Thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My sincere apologies for the delay in reviewing!

Pub. Date: 9/27/2022
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday; Vintage

When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give—to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish.

When Laura takes her own life, her ghost haunts Abby and Ralph in very different ways: Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is terrorized by a force intent on destroying everything she loves. To make matters worse, Mrs. Bondy’s daughter is threatening to move Mrs. Bondy from the home, leaving Abby totally alone. With everything on the line, Abby comes up with a chilling plan that will allow her to keep Mrs. Bondy, rescue Ralph from his tortured mind, and break Laura's hold on the family for good. All it requires is a little ingenuity, a lot of determination, and a unique recipe for chicken à la king…

In one of the flashbacks to her youth, Abby explains how the ratty couch in their apartment became a "motherthing" to her. She likens herself to a baby monkey, studied in a lab, who accepts a bunched-up pair of socks as a mother in its desperation for comfort and love. And it works! Abby's "motherthing", the couch, also comforts her, provides a warm place for her to hide when her world and actual mother fall apart. Motherthing, the novel, provides no warm place in which to hide. Hilariously irreverent and explicitly horrific, Hogarth shines an incredibly sharp spotlight onto the effects of parent-child relationships and painful love. Motherthing is a Domestic Horror novel, which means it definitely takes its imagery and plot to the extremes, but it all works to highlight the sore spots the novel is poking at. And the spots are very sore. Motherthing deals with depression, suicidal ideation, abuse (sexual and emotional), and more. It's no light and breezy thriller and even for a horror it affected me quite a bit. Hogarth achieves this both through the plot but also through the way she writes, the insight she shows into its themes and into the human mind. Following Abby as she tries to save the life she envisioned, you'll be sucked into a mind trying so hard to hold on to sanity she may be strangling it. 

Abby and Ralph are in the hospital. Ralph's mother, Laura, tried and succeeded at killing herself and now they're bereft. Or rather, they're a little lost in her home, which houses difficult memories for both. Ralph's relationship with his mother was intense and codependent, and now he seems lost at sea. So lost, in fact, that he is convinced his mother has returned from the dead. Abby tries to save her husband, save the future they imagined, including a child of their own which they would nurture with all the love they didn't receive themselves growing up. But it's all becoming a bit much, both at home and at work. She works at a nursing home and her favourite patient seems under threat from her daughter, who seems insistent on moving her somewhere worse. In her desperation, Abby tries to look beyond the veil and comes up with a plan which will change everything. The story of Motherthing is honestly bonkers while staying, somehow, oddly realistic. The elements at play all make sense, but they are heightened by the shadows that hang over the, by the tension it ramps up, and by the layers of "normality" which are slowly but surely peeled back. The story is enhanced by flashbacks to how Abby and Ralph met and what Abby's childhood and life before Ralph was like. Each of these flashbacks comes at the perfect moment to illuminate something in the story itself and to build a larger picture of who Abby is, or is trying to be.

This is my first book by Ainslie Hogarth but it won't be my last. I was absolutely entranced from the first page by her writing. There is an irreverence to it which makes her characters very real to me, from the way they joke with each other to the truth they reveal about themselves in their actions. As I said above, the writing does a lot to make Motherthing work and make it an incredibly effective horror book. One thing I found fascinating was the way in which some scenes, either flashbacks, hypothetical scenarios, or actual events, were written as if they were a play. It works so well to show the way in which Abby both critiques her own life, looking at it from the outside for flaws, and in which she disassociates from her own life. Sometimes she is at such a remove from herself that she is hardly a participants, while at other times she is right in the heart of it. Add to it that Abby's narration is somehow both hilarious and disjointed enough to be frightening, and it becomes impossible to put Motherthing down. Elements of it are solidly disturbing and you may feel a little bad laughing at certain moments, but this has honestly been one of my favourite reads so far this year!

I want to discuss a few things here which are slightly spoilery, so maybe slip to the rating below if you don't want any spoilers! Abby has a fascination with wanting to bite and swallow those she loves, whether it's her husband or her favourite patient. This idea of wanting to consume, imbibe, wholly take in, what you love, to make it a part of yourself, is something most of us can recognise, if we're willing to admit it. Who hasn't seen a cute cat or a cute baby and gone "omg I want to squish it" or "I just wanna nibble your ear real quick". This was a great example to me of how Hogarth takes something most of us can probably relate to at least a little and then imbues it with extra meaning for the character of Abby. The quest Abby is on is technically one to save Ralph, save Mrs. Bundy, save the lives they're meant to have. But below that thrums Abby's need to figure out what she herself is. Through her traumatic childhood, Abby has built up an enormous wall, but she is not entirely sure if there actually is anything to guard or whether she is just a void wishing to be crammed full of the love of others. This hit me so hard. I have alwyas loved Horror because it is so revealing of the dark underbelly of humanity, but it has been quite a while since a Horror book literally held up a mirror to me and went "Are you worried you're a void? Are you worried your the monster? What are you willing to do to fix this?". I would wholeheartedly recommend this painful experience to anyone who knows it'll do them some good, but do please be mindful of the content warnings as well so you can make a considered decision on whether this book is for you!

I give this novel...

5 Universes!

I was desperate to read Motherthing when it first came out and now that I've read it I'm kicking myself for waiting so long. This Domestic Horror novel will absolutely leave you a little shattered, but the road there is a delightfully terrifying one. One of my favourite books of the year so far!