Nightbitch (Review)
A review of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
In the golden age of the feminist novel where works such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale rise to stardom, Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch is a fantastic addition to the growing genre. In this case, rather than a dystopian world, the focus becomes more realistic and more personal.
Told through the lens of a nameless mother, Nightbitch is a supernatural thriller wrapped up in a tidy package of domesticity complete with a husband who is always away from work and the pitfalls of child rearing. An added element to the story is Nightbitch’s former occupation as an artist; she views the world around her with an artist’s eye and longs to express herself as she once did before she had her son. Lurking beneath it all, just around the corner, is her odd transformation into the entity known as Nightbitch.
It begins with a hint here and there, an odd patch of fur or the desire for raw steak as the brilliantly blood red cover of the book with two hands holding slabs of flesh suggests. What ensues is a comedic collapse into a world unfamiliar to Nightbitch yet tinged with traces of her own self. Somehow, she is convinced that she is slowly transforming into a dog. Along the way, she stumbles across a book entitled A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography by a mysterious author who barely has a footprint in any records, whether digital or physical. Within, it details other women who have become animalistic and fantastical creatures.
On a broader scale, Yoder asks us to question whether women are truly equal today compared to men; on a smaller scale, she shows us how easily an unstable power dynamic established by society can lead to a disordered relationship between a man and a woman. It is not the nature of the relationship itself, but rather the ebb and flow of it that determines whether it is healthy or not.
Nightbitch draws connections between animals and humans, revealing that we are all creatures of this world driven by the same impulses: food and water, sleep and shelter, love and children. Though animals are restricted to reproduction in terms of creation, humans have the benefit of art. Thus, Nightbitch the artist breathes new life into feminist ideology and Nightbitch the mother reminds us that we are only animals trying to survive.