February 19th6:30pm
Have you ever watched a woman blow up her life, and thought, good for her? This is a book club for those who seek to disrupt notions of domestic bliss - we want batshit plots, women who don't settle, and eleventh hour plot twists. We want all this packaged into a very literary 300 pages or less. This book club will explore should-be and to-be classics by literary hotties of centuries past. Leave the dirty dishes at home and come indulge with us.
This month we'll discuss Rachel Yoder's blazingly smart and voracious debut novel, in which an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog, Nightbitch.
“I could not love a novel more than Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch. It's such a uniquely brilliant book, one that looks at the intersection of motherhood and art, the terror of 'a thousand artless afternoons'. It is so wonderfully observant, so precise, and yet manages to expand and expand upon those initial concerns, turning magical, dark, and funny."—Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
“[A] wily and unrestrained debut. . . You can feel Yoder breaking loose, too, like she’s just self-injected a serum mixed with her protagonist’s blood . . . With its endorsement of a magical text as more cathartic than any mommy memoir, Nightbitch makes the case for itself, and for fiction that expands motherhood into new, surreal dimensions. . . Yoder sees a new way into the baser kinks of our animal selves, the ineffable bodily transformation of a woman into a mother. What is fiction for, if not blowing life up into the freakish myth it appears to be?”—The New Yorker
An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.
As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, and meets a group of mommies involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme who may also be more than what they seem.
An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power, and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want.
Reserve your place with a $5 voucher, redeemable on the night of the book club meeting on any product in store.