Debut works can say a lot about an author, and I think naming her first public work Nightbitch says a lot about Rachel Yoder as a modern, subversive, and perhaps even chaotic, author.
This novel centres in on a struggling woman. Unable to make it as an artist, and positioned as a mother of a two-year-old boy, whilst her husband is always away for work reasons and keeping in touch from a distance. Naturally, she grows exhausted and agitated by this life.
However, in an almost fantastical way, she effectively starts to become a horrific being akin to a werewolf, full of a hunger for new things and brimming with changes to her instincts and rationale.
Obviously, Yoder is mixing the cliché imagery of a struggling mother (whose husband is never around) with dark fantasy and horror elements of classic fiction. It doesn’t seem to want to be subtle, and even the metaphor of this inner being of hers representing nothing more than her true womanly voice and angers won’t be lost on most readers. Yet, it still sounds interesting, and every bit of cover art I have seen for it can only be called rad.
I think I’ll have to give this one a read, someday.
Leave a Reply