Mother, Mother
Mother, Mother tells the story of the Hurst family. To all of their neighbors and friends, the Hursts are a catalogue family. Douglas and Josephine Hurst are happily married and well-off, living in liberal, upstate New York. They have three healthy and intelligent children, attend church regularly and appear to be living the supposed white picket fence fantasy.
Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas
Book Title: Mother, Mother
Author: Koren Zailckas
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary Fiction
Length: 363 pages hardcover
Publish date: 2013
Publisher: Crown
Previous books: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, Fury: True Tales of a Girl Gone Ballistic
Similar books/authors: Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn, Where’d You Go Bernadette? – Marie Semple
Re-readability: 6/10
Favorite Quote: “Some mothers cannot love,” said Edie, her voice a touch too aggressive and loud. “Ask any farmer, they’ll tell you some moms just aren’t naturals. Having a baby doesn’t make you a mother any more than buying a piano makes you fucking Beethoven.”
Mother, Mother is memoirist Koren Zailckas’ first sojourn into fiction. I was a fan of her first best-selling memoir Smashed: A Story of a Drunken Girlhood, and earlier this year I devoured Fury: Tales of a Girl Gone Ballistic, her second memoir published in 2010. Both books capture the reader’s attention by seamlessly weaving Kailckas’ experiences with statistical anecdotes and research, ultimately telling stories much larger than her own. In reading Mother, Mother, it was easy to see that Zailckas brought that same attention to detail to her first venture into fiction.
Mother, Mother tells the story of the Hurst family. To all of their neighbors and friends, the Hursts are a catalogue family. Douglas and Josephine Hurst are happily married and well-off, living in liberal, upstate New York. They have three healthy and intelligent children, attend church regularly and appear to be living the supposed white picket fence fantasy.
The family maintains their image through careful manipulation by the matriarch of the home, Josephine Hurst. Matriarch could not be a more fitting term for Josephine, who rules over the Hurst household like some deceptively benevolent dictator, wielding power to her advantage. Things have run smoothly under Josephine’s order, but when eldest daughter Rose runs away with a mysterious boyfriend, it leaves a splinter in the Hurst’s perfect facade.
The novel begins a year after Rose’s disappearance and is told in the alternating third person perspectives of William and Violet Hurst. William, the youngest son and twelve-years-old, was recently diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder and, as a result of bullying, pulled from public school. William is now home schooled by his mother.
Violet is sixteen years old and the self-identified difficult child. She’s nursing the tail-end of a psychedelic trip and being checked into a mental facility when we meet her. As Violet struggles to communicate with her family to find out what happened during her trip that led to a mental ward, she is contacted by missing sister Rose and begins to make sense of events from the last year.
Mother, Mother is a tense and captivating thriller, and as the story unraveled, I found myself much like the Hurst children: holding drawn breath, trying to anticipate Josephine’s next move, paying close attention to her words, and even closer to what went unsaid. Zailckas maintains a chilling atmosphere throughout the novel, keeping curiosity at bay with a carefully revealed plot.
Upon first glance at the title, Mother, Mother seemed reminiscent of an opening line in a nursery rhyme, sing-songy, playful. However, as I became more acquainted with the Hurst family and Josephine’s sinister capabilities were revealed, the pause of the comma seemed to reveal a desperateness, a pleading quality. Looking at it now, situated above a fragile, push-pinned, patchwork denim heart, I imagine it whispered in the voice of a small child, a hopeful and despairing call into darkness that only echoes back silence.
A suspenseful examination of the pervasive nature of family and the insidious progression of mental illness, Mother, Mother solidifies Zailckas as one of the next big contenders in contemporary fiction.
Dorkproval Rating: [Rating:9/10]
Categories: Reviews