“It’s time to tell,” says the Bird of the Wood. “Are you prepared to be Chouette’s mother? Yes or no?”
“If I say no?”
“She’ll die.”
“If I say yes?”
“Then she’ll probably kill you,” she says. “Quick quick quick. She needs a mother, or she needs to die.”
Like the very best dark and twisted fairytales, Chouette reads, in the big picture, like a many-layered metaphor, and up close, is a heart-squeezing drama written in unsettling and provocative prose. This is a remarkable tale of motherhood taken to the extreme and the strain that parenting a “non-conforming” child can put on a marriage; as the story was based somewhat on author Claire Oshetsky’s own experience as a mother, the pure and absolute truth of the premise shines through the twisted branches of the allegorical scaffolding. I totally bought into this story of a woman who gave birth to an owl-baby (whatever the author actually meant by that) — and the woman’s fight against efforts to “fix” her child into something more socially acceptable — and I don’t think a reader would need to be a parent to be affected viscerally by this grim, but somehow uplifting, tale. I’d give this 4.5 stars if possible and am rounding down only because, to my personal tastes, some of Oshetsky’s devices (the many references to music, the owl-woman, etc.) eventually felt too deliberate and forced.
So. This is motherhood. I ponder it. I ponder the lonely, cruel, relentless obligation of motherhood. I ponder the loving, soft, yielding wonder of motherhood. I ponder the mystery of who you are, little stranger, and who you will become. Your eyes are glued shut with vernal birth-glue. Your skin is gray where the black natal down doesn’t cover it completely. I kiss the red mottle of your scalp. I love you. I love you. To habituate to the idea of loving you, I say it many times. You’re ugly. I tried not to think that last thought, but the thought snuck in. It was easier to love you before you were born. I’m afraid of you. You disgust me. I’ve made a terrible mistake.
In the opening scene, the main character, Tiny, is cooking and thinks, “My stew is simmering on the stove and it tints the air the color of dog-skin”, and the metaphors and language only gets more weird and disturbing from there; the “reality” of the narrative is weirder still. She gives birth to an owl-baby — a pregnancy more wanted by her husband than by Tiny herself — and despite early months of exhaustion, frustration, and soul-crushing loneliness (gosh, but I remember those days), Tiny grows to love her angry, blood-thirsty, grotesquely-formed child. Motherhood comes between Tiny and her career as a cellist, her inlaws are so disturbed by the baby Chouette (note: everyone but Tiny insists on calling her Charlotte) that they don’t visit or send gifts or support (despite living eleven miles away), and Tiny’s husband (a decent man and “a bit of a looker”) doesn’t want anything to do with either of them until he gets it in his head to find a way to make the baby “normal” (a “dog-baby”):
I don’t think he means to be unkind. It’s just that he thinks he’s right, and that I’m the opposite of right, especially when it comes to raising an owl-baby like you. To your father I’m a box that needs to be opened on his way to helping you, and it doesn’t really matter to him if he finds the key to me, or if he needs to smash me open with a hammer.
So, between the gleaming and the gloaming, when the yabber-yabber leads to woolgathering and the scrabble-scrabble in the hallway makes the heart pound with dread, a mother will do what a mother must do and this strange domestic drama builds to a fantastical, relatable, glorious ending.
Life is, in fact, a battle, and the pursuit of goodness is a fragile aspiration when survival calls for ruthless cruelty, especially from mothers.
In a Goodreads review written by the author (under her pseudonym lark benobi), Oshetsky discusses the literary inspirations behind Chouette, and in a video on her homepage, she explains the inspiration she drew from her own experiences; and I found all of that very interesting and informative. It must be noted, however, that Chouette is completely its own thing, unlike anything else I’ve ever read, and it completely succeeds as its own thing. This might not be for everyone, but it was for me and I hope Oshetsky keeps writing novels.
