Let’s face it. Mothers can be terrifying. We may not want to admit it, but for every June Cleaver and Carol Brady, there’s a Norma Bates or a Pamela Voorhees. The less said about the Freudian concept of the devouring mother (which the horror genre has always been all too willing to take to the most literal extremes), the better. In horror cinema and fiction, domesticity is rarely bliss.
The mother-as-monster is the guiding premise behind MOTHER KNOWS BEST: TALES OF HOMEMADE HORROR, coming from Bram Stoker Award-nominated and Silver Falchion Award-winning editor Lindy Ryan (Into the Forest) May 7. Featuring exclusive short stories and poetry from some of the genre’s fiercest women, including Gwendolyn Kiste (Reluctant Immortals), Kelsea Yu (Bound Feet) and Rachel Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth), with an introduction by Sadie Hartmann (101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered), this upcoming Women in Horror anthology promises to be a menagerie of maternal nightmares.
Publisher Black Spot Books, an imprint of Vesuvian Media Group, and Lindy Ryan recently gave RUE MORGUE an exclusive first look at the book’s blood-spattered cover.
