Nightbitch, by Rachel Yoder, is the Bible to which I will return every Sunday and select sentences and paragraphs to read and re-read at my bedside every evening. I will stop short of reading it aloud to my kids, but they can memorize passages from it on their own someday. Highlighted and underlined throughout, notes in the margins, a better-studied piece of writing than any of the textbooks that moved with me from apartment to apartment in my college days, the book will sleep with me under my pillow and drive with me on the passenger seat. After all, the word “bitch” isn’t a bad word when referencing a female dog, so it’s absolutely acceptable to have it around my children. And it’s never a bad word when referencing this book.
Nightbitch excites in me rage and comfort, resentment and joy. I don’t know a thing about Yoder other than she knows what it’s like to be a mother. I know she knows how it feels to be paused, interrupted, somehow left behind even though it’s you, the mother, who becomes the engine pushing everyone else forward. I know she knows how it feels to be stilled when all you want to do is vibrate.
The mother in the book has a child who is somewhere between two and three years old. The mother is never named — which is perfect. She stays at home now, a former art gallery curator of some sort. But of course she didn’t make as much money as her husband, so the couple decided she would stop working for money and stay home with the child. Now, a prickling resentment grows hair on her body where it usually isn’t, and she eventually fully transforms into a vicious, violent “nightbitch” one night. The contentment she feels in fully embodying her rage and feeling her animal intensity leaves her relaxed, but also confused. She questions whether she should enjoy this new side of herself. She questions whether she shouldn’t “be a joiner for once” and sell herbs with other happy-seeming moms she hears about at this thing called “Book Babies,” a storytime at a library. Nightbitch, even after finding satisfaction in this new transformation, continues to question herself, which is exactly what you do when you’re a mom.
A few times the mother draws up a schedule for herself for the day that includes starting up an art project for herself, and inevitably, every day she fails at making it happen. And it is a failure and she feels it in her bones and yet there is nothing to be done about it, because the days turn over and the same thing happens next time. Ambition is energy reserved to create with urgency. I have creative energy, but it’s got lots of competition for my time. Which frustrates me and is exactly why I love this book so much.
Short Story Club meets online. You’re invited to join. Just let me know. Or let me know if you’ve read any of these stories before.
I keep a spreadsheet of all of the stories and poems I read that I find online, and I rate them 1-5. Here are my most recent 5s as recommended reading:
“The Knowers,” a story by Helen Phillips, published on 9/11/13 in Electric Literature
“The Mothers,” a story by Julie Innis, published in Pithead Chapel
“The End of Poetry,” a poem by Ada Limon, published in The New Yorker
I am still writing. The next installment of “Cleave” is coming soon. I have been writing shorter stories as well, but I’ve been surprisingly possessive about them, thinking I’d like to develop them into something else instead of publish them here. That being said, I’m going to take on the Fictionistas writing prompt challenge this month. I’ll publish that story here.
Thank you for reading. I’m especially in awe of those mothers out there who write. I’d love to check in with other creative mothers. We are a different breed. (Read Nightbitch.)
I’ll be back next week. Happy June.
Yes! Nightbitch is freaking amazing.