BookLife Review: Nightbitch, a Novel, by Rachel Yoder

magical realism, at-home mother, isolation, frustration, artist, performance art, woman becomes dog.

January is often the time of year when I look for something different. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder certainly fills that bill. Yoder’s novel is a bold and sometimes mind-blowing work of magical realism that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. She concocts an alternate reality cocktail from her characters’ raw emotions, fatigue, fears, frustrations and other psychic ingredients. The book’s premise also rests on a powerful and common tension–a talented career woman (who has succeeded in the ultra-challenging field of fine art) becomes a stay-at-home mom. 

Most of the characters in the book remain unnamed, which affords them a universality of sorts. The new mom’s partner travels most of each week for business so our hero is isolated and exhausted. She has stepped away from her burgeoning career as an artist. Having found some early success, she had been experiencing an artistic lull. The book takes off at a trot when the new mom protagonist, experiencing deep fatigue, looks in the mirror and identifies a patch of new hair on her neck and lengthening of her canine teeth. As her fatigue, isolation and frustrations mount, she begins stepping outside at night to roam her neighborhood. She becomes more and more wolf-like in her forays, eventually preying upon stray cats, birds and rabbits. 

Yoder builds the woman’s internal struggle with identity, boredom and isolation to a pitch that allows the reader to travel along with her as she seeks relief and release in her alter ego canine night sojourns. Yoder uses humor and compelling language to attempt to render the protagonist’s excursions and hunts palatable, though sometimes that is a stretch, as they become more violent and graphic. At precisely the point where the reader may be unable to sustain and suspend attachment to the magical realism story, Yoder offers a buoy; she allows her protagonist to incorporate her altered state and split persona into a piece of performance art. As our mom-turned-she-wolf rediscovers her art, she begins to bond more fully with her son. The art is shocking; it stuns its early audiences and generates staunch and enraged criticism before taking hold. It finds its audience, especially among other sidelined artists and at-home parents. 

While there is a bit of repetitiveness in the night excursions and a lot of stream of consciousness on the prowls, the repetition is a hallmark of both at-home parenting itself and art in development, so it has some merit. The lines between reality and fantasy are well and truly blurred in this powerful work of magical realism.