Motherthing – Ainslie Hogarth

Expectation: A dark and twisted domestic horror story about how far a young wife will go to save her husband from the ghost of her mother-in-law.

Reality: A bit of a recursive mess, the premise is too thin to sustain nearly 300-pages, but the last few chapters do deliver.

My Take:

Every year I try to read one book that is completely off the rails. Of course it takes time to source these recommendations, because one person’s unhinged is another person’s reasonable. 

“Motherthing,” Ainslie Hogarth’s horror dramedy was already on my radar, so when a local bookseller, a self-professed horror lover, told me it was the most f*cked up book he’d ever read, I knew it had to be the one. 

Offbeat and sardonic, Hogarth pairs elements of “Serial Mom” and “Poltergeist” with Diablo Cody-esque dialogue to deliver a truly dark domestic story rooted in overcoming trauma – paired with a heavy dose of baby fever.

Abby and Ralph, a young married couple cleaning up the mess — literally — of Ralph’s mother’s suicide, are caught in the grip of her spirit that refuses to let them be happy. It’s up to Abby to prove devotion to Ralph in order to rid them of her demon for good. 

At nearly 300-pages, the book is far too long to sustain this premise. As a novella, it would’ve worked. As a novel there is too much fat before reaching the final three chapters that deliver the bonkers story I was looking for. 

Everything else was tame and tedious. I grew tired of Abby’s one-track inner dialogue (baby! baby! baby!), the lack of development and sophomoric references to diarrhea and other bodily fluids. 

Hogarth was trying to meditate on the challenges of becoming a successful adult when you had terrible parent role models, but most of the novel felt like her trying to show us how cool she was. 

She gets a couple bonus points for some creative elements, but overall this was a huge miss and not worth the time.

Rating (story): 2/5 stars

Rating (narration): N/A

Format: eBook (personal library)

Dates read: October 10 – October 29, 2023

Multi-tasking: N/A