Harare Review of Books

256 pages.

To be published in November 2021.

Finished reading on 3 Aug 2021.

Genre: Fiction

Tiny is pregnant. Her husband is delighted. “You think this baby is going to be like you, but it’s not like you at all,” she warns him. “This baby is an owl-baby.”

When Chouette is born small and broken-winged, Tiny works around the clock to meet her daughter’s needs. Left on her own to care for a child who seems more predatory bird than baby, Tiny vows to raise Chouette to be her authentic self. Even in those times when Chouette’s behaviors grow violent and strange, Tiny’s loving commitment to her daughter is unwavering. When she discovers that her husband is on an obsessive and increasingly dangerous quest to find a “cure” for their daughter, Tiny must decide whether Chouette should be raised to fit in or to be herself—and learn what it truly means to be a mother.

Arresting, darkly funny, and unsettling, Chouette is a brilliant exploration of ambition, sacrifice, perceptions of ability, and the ferocity of motherly love.

Thank you to Edelweiss and to HarperCollins for this ARC.

Goodness, this was not to my taste at all. I finished it because it was very readable, and because I always finish books — but the subject matter and style were unsettling to me, and therefore unpleasant. Reminded very much of the feeling I had while reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh — the same strangeness, the same feeling of treading water in the dark.

Tiny, the mother in the book, is very unlikeable; but as the book progressed, I began to feel sympathy for her. Because she’s an unreliable narrator, I could not figure out whether this was a story about mental illness — puerperal psychosis (or, more accurately, a nervous breakdown that started during Tiny’s pregnancy), or a story about Tiny’s child’s disability; or even both. The style of writing suits the swirling bewilderment that Tiny must be living through, but the treatment of disability and the raw details in the book are truly gut-churning. This is not a comfortable read.

Having said all of that, I think the author achieves what they may have set out to do — to write a book about the dark side of motherhood, maybe the nightmares new mothers have (I’m guessing here, not being a mother myself). The disintegration of Tiny’s marriage is also well done (and those in-laws!) The book reads like horror though, and I’m glad I’m not reading it while expecting 😩

Not sure whether to recommend this one. Read because it’s a very unusual book, and because it’s good literary fiction. Don’t read because it is pretty traumatic. You’ll have to decide.

Rated: 3/10 (but this is a very personal rating).