Graveyard of Lost Children: A Novel by Katrina Monroe

​I requested this one from Netgalley on author’s name alone. If I hadn’t read Monroe’s work before and thought highly of it, it’s difficult to tell whether this book would have attracted me by description alone. I tend to stay away from mommy thrillers aka books with main focus being on mothers’ relationships with their children, mothers trying to have children, mothers mothering children, etc. at all costs.
But then you give the theme to someone talented enough and they’ll do something wild, strange, and original with it. Like here.
In Monroe’s book, motherhood is a nightmare. Because really it is. If you take the hormonal mushiness out of it and view it objectively, it’s terrifying. And this book is so very good at highlighting all those terrors an exhausted (and post-partum) brain might weave.
The plot centers around a first-time mother who is slowly driven mad by her baby. Isolated and turned essentially into a feeding machine for a voraciously hungry creature she doesn’t know how to love, with no real support from her wife or family, the woman starts suspecting madness. It is, after all in her genes. Time to track down her long-locked up mad mother and ask? Yeah, just how well that’s going to play out, you think?
The real success of this book is in its claustrophobic atmosphere and vividly rendered slow psychological unraveling of a person.
I read it during the same week I watched Rachel Weisz spectacular remake of Dead Ringers and the combination was horrifyingly awesome. If that doesn’t put people off motherhood, nothing will.
But of course, the thing is…NOTHING WILL. Doesn’t matter the complications, dangers, or ramifications. Mommyhood always comes through, all shining and desirable. Even in stories like this. Presumably because the authors are mothers themselves and once that drive kicks in…
So the ending is something of a letdown. Or rather a softening of an otherwise razor-sharp blade of a novel. But otherwise, it’s a really good read. For fans of dark psychological fiction.  Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.