Nightbitch

“Where was the mother’s hymnal with songs of worship and praise?”

Nightbitch comments on the lactation room, where mothers can go to pump milk for their children, at her workplace. Rather than representing a celebration and veneration of mothers and motherhood, it is the smallest, ugliest room in the building. For Nightbitch, its state symbolizes the undervaluation of mothers in society.

“She had done the ultimate job of creation, and now she had nothing left. To keep him alive—that was the only artistic gesture she could muster.”

Nightbitch reflects on both how she has given up her job in a community gallery and her work as an artist to look after her son. On one hand, she left her career because she lacked time. On the other, her inability to artistically create is also the result, she feels, of pouring so much creative energy into the birthing and creation of her son. This question—of how to create artistically as a mother—is one of the central problems and questions of the text.

“She smiled and laughed and chatted and exchanged and hugged and fed and generally joined in wherever joining in was possible.”

Nightbitch describes Jen, who she sees at the “Book Babies” mother’s group at her local library. In one sense, Nightbitch’s comment reflects a disdain of Jen’s conformity and the superficiality of her social performance. In another sense, her comment betrays Nightbitch’s jealousy. Unlike Jen, Nightbitch is isolated and unable to effectively integrate with the other mothers.

The quoted passage uses polysyndeton, where words are connected by the same conjunction, in this case “and.” This creates a sense of breathlessness: “She smiled and laughed and chatted and exchanged and hugged and fed and generally joined in wherever joining in was possible” (emphasis added).

“Every morning, the same. Every day, the same.”

Nightbitch describes yet another frustrating aspect of being a fulltime caregiver for a young child. She uses repetition for emphasis—“Every” and “the same”—conveying her sense of monotony. The routine of each day—cooking, cleaning, playing, and getting her son to sleep—is nearly identical. Such stultifying tedium is especially soul-crushing for a creative individual like Nightbitch who thrives on spontaneity and diversity of experiences.

“I am stuck inside a prison of my own creation, where I torment myself endlessly, until I am left binge-eating Fig Newtons at midnight to keep from crying.”

Nightbitch wants to confess to a former work colleague how unhappy and stifled she feels in her life as a mother. However, in the end, Nightbitch is only able to utter the platitude that she loves motherhood. The above lines reflect the tension between Nightbitch’s desperation to communicate her pain and the social expectation that she should only express gratitude and positivity about being a mother.

“Just […], she said, moving his hand to her waist and offering only tight-lipped kisses, for fear of slicing him with her canine teeth.”

Home for the weekend, Nightbitch’s husband tries to initiate physical intimacy and sex, and Nightbitch rejects his advances. On a literal level, Nightbitch does not respond because she is concerned about cutting him with her newly sharpened teeth. However, on a deeper level, there has been a breakdown of trust and emotional intimacy between them, symbolized by her husband’s inability to see or recognize the signs of Nightbitch becoming a dog.

“[…] whether your research is, well, ‘true’ in a scientific and rational sense, or whether you’re instead performing scholarship so as to make larger points.”

Nightbitch begins writing emails to Wanda White, author of A Field Guide to Magical Women. Nightbitch wonders whether White’s fantastical descriptions of part-animal women are intended to be taken literally, or represent a parody of traditional scholarship. If the latter is true, then White might be highlighting the limitations and problems of ordinary scientific and scholarly modes of understanding.

“She should call the doctor immediately and make an appointment, should probably be evaluated by a psychiatrist.”

The morning after she is undressed by three dogs and feels communion with them, Nightbitch wakes up and reflects. She realizes that by ordinary, rational standards her experiences would be viewed as symptoms of mental illness. Yet, Nightbitch also feels a sense of joy at what transpired; despite calling a doctor being the “normal” response, she feels no desire or need to do so.

“She scuttled to the side door […] feeling as Eve must have felt that first morning out of the garden.”

Nightbitch spends an entire night as a dog, roaming the streets naked, defecating on a neighbor’s lawn, and killing a rabbit with her mouth. However, on returning to her human self and the human world, she realizes what Eve must have felt when cast out of paradise in The Old Testament. Nightbitch becomes aware of the contrast between an animal’s freedom, where there is no concern for social norms and one can simply follow instinct, and the shame and guilt-ridden state of ordinary, human consciousness.

“Certainly she had played with him before, but all too often her efforts were uninspired and weary, unable as she was to shirk the burdens of adulthood and reality.”

Having experienced being a dog, Nightbitch starts playing with her son as a dog would. They chase each other on all fours, barking, growling, and prowling, and having other children in the park they visit do likewise. From this experience, Nightbitch realizes that she had never truly played with her son before. She had been too concerned with socially prescribed notions about how she should be playing with him, rather than following her instinct, letting go of inhibitions, and being joyfully absorbed in the play herself.

“We don’t put raw meat on the floor. Or in our mouths, for that matter. Yucky […].”

When Nightbitch’s husband returns one weekend, he sees his son carrying a raw steak in his mouth. He becomes alerted to the fact that Nightbitch and their son have been playing as dogs, something she was keen to conceal from him. The discovery precipitates an argument about how their son is being raised and highlights the emotional gulf between Nightbitch and her husband.

“[… The art piece was] a real-time video of twenty-four hours of her day, alongside an actress acting out that very same day in that very same space.”

The novel explores questions of art and what it means to be an artist. Nightbitch describes an art video piece by one of her successful artist friends. As with the project of her other friend, this video claims to be doing something radical and subversive, challenging notions of self-identity. However, all the piece really reveals is that the true force behind such art is narcissism. What her friend really seeks is to be recognized as an artist, and to have the social status and acknowledgment that goes along with such recognition. In contrast, Nightbitch’s project probes beyond the surface, into the meaning of what it means to be a mother, and bridging motherhood with Nightbitch’s transformation into a dog.

“She saw herself as these other women now saw her, a silent, flabby woman sipping wine without so much as a single exciting comment or opinion to offer to the conversation.”

Nightbitch grows increasingly frustrated with her artist friends boasting about their achievements and ignoring her. Their successes also highlight the absence and sacrifice of Nightbitch’s own artistic career. Her sense of failure extends beyond careers and art and coalesces into a generalized negative image about her whole life and person.

“I could crush a walnut with my vagina!”

Nightbitch’s frustration with her art friends in the restaurant reaches a climax; she stands up, knocks the table over, makes a strange exclamation about her vagina, and storms out of the restaurant. On one level, Nightbitch’s comment can be read as simply an expression of frustration and a desperate desire to reassert her own skills and achievements in light of her friend’s success. On another level, the remark is a direct rejoinder to the pretentious and abstract character of her friend’s projects. Nightbitch emphasizes the importance of the concrete and the bodily, and the role of art in disturbing and upsetting ordinary standards of propriety.

“One night, she had a dream of her mother, outside in the grass, set upon by foxes and racoons and wolves.”

Reflecting on her childhood, Nightbitch recalls a dream she had about her mother; various animals attack her mother, but she continues to pet them as they tear her to shreds. This dream can be understood in the context of her mother giving up her dream of becoming an opera singer to look after Nightbitch. The dream symbolizes her mother’s unwillingness to defend or assert herself, even in the face of hostile forces, and the destructive effects of such behavior. The dream also serves as a warning to Nightbitch not to sacrifice her own identity and ambition for the sake of others.

“The Siberian WereMothers are one of the few species I’ve had the pleasure of seeing firsthand.”

In another chapter from Wanda White’s book, White describes a mysterious group of women she visited in Siberia. Half woman, half wolf, these women lived and reproduced without men and communicated telepathically, and represent Communal Notions of Motherhood and Femininity. The WereMothers in the novel represent the ideal collective mothers, who are connected in a deep and intuitive way, and which Nightbitch is looking for.

“It was like floating in a warm pool, as easy as falling asleep, and just as comforting.”

Nightbitch describes her experience at Jen’s party after having consumed various herbs and alcohol, and listened to Jen’s rousing sales pitch. On one hand, the experience is positive, as the mothers are all absorbed in a happy communal sense of abandon. However, their stupor also erodes critical thought, and allows them to be tricked into handing over money to a dubious multi-level marketing scheme.

“The work is the life. There isn’t a distinction.”

Nightbitch responds to her husband over the phone when he asks her how the work is going. Her response is somewhat dismissive, revealing continued tension with her husband. It also captures something important about her developing art project. Namely, her art project will attempt to integrate the experiences and emotions that Nightbitch feels as a mother into her art. For this reason, Nightbitch’s day-to-day life forms the raw material for her project.

“She had been, she saw now, inculcated by a culture that told her, look, it’s cute you’re a mom, and do your thing, but, honestly, it’s not that hard.”

Nightbitch realizes that she can challenge her husband to take on more of the childcare, and he agrees. Nightbitch grasps that she had not demanded this before because of a societal idea to which she was subconsciously assenting—that being a mother is less important and challenging than paid work and, as such, priority should be given to the interests of the parent in the formal labor market.

“[…] they prey on women who feel disempowered, who are stuck and at home and are taken in by promises of financial agency.” 

Nightbitch describes multi-level marketing schemes, like the herb business that Jen has gotten involved in. Such schemes claim to offer mothers a sense of community and economic empowerment and independence. In fact, women often end up paying more for the “right” to sell a dubious product than they ever recover in sales. At the same time, the notion of community is undermined; to make any money back, one must trick other women into joining the same scheme.

“Here is my skin. Here yours. Beneath the moon, we pile inside the warm cave, becoming one creature to save our warmth […] This is how it has always been and how it will continue to be. We keep each other alive […].”

Nightbitch reflects on her son and potentially looking after her elderly parents in the future. This leads her to think that the ideal community must be based not in reason or language but in shared instinct and need. She suggests that human beings, like other animals, can be united by the shared struggle to survive, and can become a single organism.

“It was nothing more than ‘druggie left-wing poppycock,’ not ‘real art,’ nor ‘serious art,’ but, rather, a ‘common sideshow.’”

Nightbitch describes the reaction of some conservative art critics to her performance piece. They use the fact that intoxication is part of her show to dismiss something that they do not understand. Here, Yoder is also satirizing the potential response of critics to Nightbitch.

“It is perhaps the most violent experience a human can have aside from death itself.”

Nightbitch explains and justifies her performance art piece. Specifically, she responds to those who might argue that the violence in her performance—killing rabbits live on stage and pouncing at the audience—is gratuitous or sensationalist. Instead, suggests Nightbitch, the violence of her performance is intended to make a serious point about the innate violence of childbirth and rearing, which is often overlooked or sanitized by Western culture.