Books I Cannot Recommend*

[Note: Today, I am starting something new for paid subscribers. I am including bonus material below a paywall. The main essay will still be free and available to all, but I will also try each week to share something I’ve been enjoying or doing that’s a bit more personal or perhaps of interest in an artistic or cultural sense that has been meaningful or helpful for me. I continue to want to keep my posts free because I want to encourage everyone to engage with good literature, and that’s what most of my essays are about. But I truly appreciate those of you who support my writing here with paid subscriptions so that I can do that. Now paid subscribers can not only comment but will also get a bit of bonus material each week that I hope blesses you as you bless me. And I can still keep all of the material about Chaucer, John Donne, John Milton, George Herbert, and Jonathan Swift and all the rest free for everyone. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, please consider it. It’s like buying me one fancy coffee a month!)

This is the next installment in my occasional series titled, “Books I Cannot Recommend.” *What I really mean by this is “Books I Cannot Recommend to All Readers or Most Readers because I Don’t Know You and You Likely Don’t Have the Same Reading Tastes as Me and even though I Like this Book I Am Not Necessarily Recommending it to You or to Anyone.”

You can read previous entries in this series here, here, and here.

The book I am not recommending is not Yesteryear, the bestselling novel about a tradwife influencer who suddenly finds herself transported to the year 1855 and has to really live the lifestyle she has been promoting. Yes, I did a little bait and switch but mainly because I fear the title and cover of the book I am not recommending might offend or turn away readers. But I want you to at least read this little non-recommendation even if you don’t want to read the book.

The book I am not recommending is Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder.

You see, I haven’t read Yesteryear and have no interest in reading it because, from what I’ve seen about it, is that while the concept is interesting, the writing is not good. Life is too short to read books that aren’t well-written.

Nightbitch grapples with similar questions as Yesteryear but is smarter and more literary. Published in 2022, Nightbitch received rave reviews from multiple outlets. I only heard of it recently, and just finished it.

Yesteryear is being read by just about everyone (it was even the talk among the women at a recent party I attended) and was a GMA (Good Morning America) book pick.

Nightbitch is definitely not a GMA book.

The simple plot is that a woman who decides to give up her profession as an artist in order to be a full-time mother to her son while her husband works (and is away all week every week for his job) slowly turns into an animal at night—a dog, to be precise.

Now if you’ve followed along here at The Priory in our series on Jonathan Swift what I say next will be familiar to you. We discussed how in A Modest Proposal and in Gulliver’s Travels, Swift takes a metaphor and makes it literal. Likewise, what Yoder is doing in this novel is taking a metaphor—motherhood is something that brings out a woman’s animal nature (both for good and ill)—and literalizing it. In carrying a child, giving birth, and nurturing a child, a mother’s body, her instincts, and even her desires tap into the animal nature we all share as human beings. I’m not a mother, and I could appreciate the power of that metaphor. I imagine some readers who are mothers might recognize its truth even more.

The reason I can’t recommend the book is that, in true Swift style, the animal state of the mother involves the things that dogs normally do (and truth be told what humans do, only in more civilized fashion): play, excrete, hunt prey, and eat meat (hence the book cover). So there’s a bit of grit and gore, along with a couple of f-bombs in the story which might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

But on the level of metaphor, this book soars. It’s pretty amazing. I had no idea where the story was going and what the end would be like. It certainly earns its description as an example of feminist magical realism. But it also takes on the very real and relevant matters of having to choose between career and motherhood, the power of art and creativity, and how motherhood is the ultimate creativity. The book skewers multi-level-marketing, too (calling Kristin Du Mez!), brilliantly exposing the way this “business model” preys especially on women who feel devalued in being mothers. This darkly satirical aspect of the novel is another way it reminds me of Swift. There is even a very interesting spiritual dimension throughout in the form of a god-like figure who plays a central role in the story.

Having read the novel over the past week or so, I also found it particularly timely within the discourse around the ongoing trial of a mother who murdered her three children while suffering some form of postpartum psychosis for which she may have been overmedicated. The mother in Nightbitch also fears she is going crazy.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but I do want to say something about the way the book ends to explain why, while I’m not recommending it, I am drawing attention to it for the sake of any whose interest might be piqued. The book ends in a powerful, even moving, affirmation of, not only motherhood, but of families. The last paragraph alone is worth the price of admission. Before that there is a paragraph in which the mother foresees a time when she will be called upon to care for her aging parents in the same way she now cares for her son, and it is one of the most human and humane passages I’ve read in a long time. Those of you who’ve been following my story will know why this is particularly resonant for me.

This is not a book for the faint of heart. But for those who’ve been paying attention to the buzz around Yesteryear, I think this book is a smart and profound treatment of similar questions.

Nightbitch has already been made into a film, starring Amy Adams. But from what I’ve read the film is a poor adaptation of the novel, so I haven’t watched it. Likewise, Yesteryear is being made into a film and will star Anne Hathaway in the lead role. I have no plans to read the book. But maybe I will watch the movie at some point.

How about you? Have you or will you read any of these books or watch the films? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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Look for more details for fall reading next week. We will cover a few very short selections from Samuel Johnson then we will read Frances Burney’s Evelina! (I will use the Norton Critical Edition because it’s the one I’ve previously read and marked up.) Burney was one of Jane Austen’s favorite novelists. It is very enjoyable!

BOOK NOTE:

Here’s a book I heartily and unreservedly recommend: Look like a Lady: Five Visual Tropes of Womanhood and How to See Ourselves Differently by Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt. Not only did I endorse this book, but I asked Elissa if I could! (I never ask to do an endorsement!) I know Elissa’s work as an art historian and a writer, and I knew this book would be fascinating and illuminating on multiple levels. It is. It is a deep and insightful examination through art throughout the ages of the images of women that are the very things that lead to the questions both Yesteryear and Nightbitch are wrestling with. Look like a Lady releases September 8, but you can pre-order it now.

“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” – Simone Weil1

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