When Mother Love Goes Bad
Artist Kiki Smith got to the heart of the creative process (WSJ 3.2.19) “I often don’t like what I’m doing,” she says, “but I try to follow it through. It takes you where it wants to go. In hindsight, it always has something that has to do with your life. You hopefully learn something from it.”
Learning from works of art—painting, music, sculpture, books—takes an open heart and mind. In writing, I too try and follow through even though I’m hesitant and sometimes frightened. I have a new book, Goddess of Everything, near readiness for shipping off to my editors. I am scared.
Goddess of Everything is a supernatural thriller about mother love gone bad and the need to break free. No one thinks mother love can go bad. Maybe the book is too much, I fear. What if folks are offended, put off by the notion? I know there are stories like Mommie Dearest, and others dramatizing wicked mothers or stepmothers. But, what if the consequences of not breaking free of mother love gone bad take supernatural twists and turns into dark and destructive places?
The fact is, we want mothers to be good, we run and run and run from the truth when the truth is bad.
Everything is on the line with mother love gone bad. Everything means life, sense of self, relationships. If a mother can be bad, especially if that badness is hidden by good manners and charm, then there’s a definite problem. There is psychological turmoil, self-doubt, and we start run, run, running from truth. We run until our world becomes topsy turvy crazy and weird happenings pop out of nowhere to convince us of what must be faced.
Goddess of Everything is hot, bubbling, about ready for edits and for us all to pause, read, and hopefully (in the words of Kiki Smith) learn something from it—a message sizzling right off the supernatural hotline!
“Live Deeply…Read Daily”
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