In Mother May I, Bree Cabbot’s infant son Robert is stolen from the tony private school where she is watching her older children at a play rehearsal. This is no ordinary kidnap-and-ransom scenario; in my books, the past has teeth, the past has a pulse, and on this day, the past is coming for Bree. The kidnapper asks for what seems like a simple (if illegal) favor in lieu of ransom. With her child’s life at stake, Bree has no choice but to agree. The “favor” has unforeseen, even deadly consequences, and the fall-out will send Bree and her childhood friend Marshall on a harrowing race against time to save her baby.
While Bree’s quest to rescue Robert is the main thrust of the narrative, there’s a #metoo razorblade hidden deep in this confection. I wanted to play out a revenge fantasy. I planted the seeds for it early and then let it unfold alongside and sometimes even under the main plot. If you have ever been (or if you have ever loved) a woman done wrong, I promise you, this thread is some low down dirty dark fun.
I love a good vengeance tale, and the heart of this kind of story is our natural, human rage at injustice.
By the time we are five, we have an inkling that the world is not fair; I am not sure we ever resign ourselves fully to that awful truth. Sometimes, people do things that are deeply, deeply wrong, and for those directly affected, even actual justice feels pallid and floppy. It can feel that way for us witnesses and readers too. And if the person gets clean away with it? It is an affront to all that is right and good. I think revenge stories are our way of trying to set the world to rights. Brutal and comforting at the same time…
Here are some of my favorite thrillers and chillers that feature the kind of “getting even” narrative I love.
The Weight of Lies, by Emily Carpenter
What may be my favorite Emily Carpenter book (and this is saying something) begins as a revenge tale about a tell-all expose planned by the neglected daughter of a famous writer. Meg Ashley’s mother was a one hit wonder, and Meg still lives well off the profits of that book. Desperate to separate herself via revenge-memoir, she begins investigating her mother’s life and the real-life events that inspired the cult classic. She soon finds herself embroiled in a decades old murder mystery. The closer Meg gets to solving this crime, the more dangerous things become. Come for the revenge narrative, stay for the Kitten excerpts.
Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
My favorite book last year was probably Mexican Gothic, and this early novel by its author contains a wonderful revenge story. A Jazz Age Cinderella, maiding it up for her wealthy grandfather in a small, stifling town in rural Mexico, accidentally sets free the Mayan God of Death. Spoiler alert: Do not cross the god of death! Too late—his brother has already betrayed him, and now he wants Casiopea to help him…set things right. The stakes are high, as failure equals death. It’s part fairy tale, part revenge thriller, part road trip, and all fantastic.
After the Flood, by Kassandra Montag
Kassandra Montag’s speculative, action-packed thriller takes place in a watery post-apocalyptic nightmare-scape. It’s narrated by Myra, a woman on a quest to find the child that was stolen by her own husband. Her heart is filled with rage at her betrayals and a desire to put right all that has been done to her. Her dangerous quest is complicated by the presence of her other child, seven year old Pearl, and the group of fellow survivors they join up with along the way. It’s a harrowing and intense ride that’s cathartic and also strangely hopeful.
Eating the Cheshire Cat, by Helen Ellis
Helen Ellis is probably most famous for her sly collection American Housewife, but I have been her rabid fan ever since I read her biting debut. I saw it on a table at a bookstore and bought it for the cover image: a goldfish swimming haplessly in a blender, at the mercy of any passing finger who wants a moderately fishy margarita. Southern social climbing becomes a bloody and explosive mother-daughter team sport, and it is as funny as it is propulsive.
My Sister the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite
This is a perfect gem of a novel, precise and scything, tense and bitingly hilarious, every sentence a delight. Plain Korede has a beloved, beautiful sister with a bad habit of offing her boyfriends. This is META-revenge, catharsis for any reader who has ever been overlooked or objectified, as the two sisters slice and secret their way across Lagos in Nigeria. Things get complicated when lovely, dangerous Ayoola turns her attentions to the very doctor Korede long-sufferingly loves from a distance. This can be read in a single afternoon, and I dare you to put it down once you have started.
The Whisper Network, by Chandler Baker
In this murderously fierce and righteously furious entry into #metoo lit, four women who work at the same legal firm all have different webs of connection to a man who generates a lot of rumor. Now, he is up for a huge promotion. Now, the women who know their own truths behind all the gossip are ready to act. Read this to get ready for Chandler Baker’s new novel, The Husbands. It comes out in June, and it is a domestic thriller touted as a sort of reverse Stepford Wives—I loved it!
***
