She’s dead in the basement. And she’s refusing to leave…
When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give—to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life in her home is hellish.
When Laura takes her own life, Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is terrorized by a force intent on destroying everything she loves. To make matters worse, Mrs. Bondy’s daughter is threatening to move Mrs. Bondy from the home, leaving Abby totally alone. With everything on the line, Abby comes up with a chilling plan that will allow her to keep Mrs. Bondy, rescue Ralph from his tortured mind, and break Laura’s hold on the family for good. All it requires is a little ingenuity, a lot of determination, and a unique recipe for chicken à la king…
Man I told Karen about this book for like twenty minutes. Here’s what I wrote in my journal:
An unexciting and weird book about the concept of motherhood, what it takes to be a mother, and the idea of mothers being holy and yet in reality being flawed. The symbolism of consumption beign an intrinsic part of feminine horror is not lost on me— the concept is a consistent theme through the book until it becomes literal. We, as the reader, end up wondering, “haha what the fuck?”
The main character basically shows that she is a mother figure by letting herself be defined wholly by others in the end, sexually devoured, becoming a mother THING, an unfeeling object used to comfort. She embodies the flaws of the mothers in the story as she resists and act trying to pull those in her care away— just like Ralph’s mother and hers. I don’t think there was a ghost at all. I think Abby wished there was. An outer forced to explain things. Honestly, did we even need the psychics?
Abby’s piloted by mothers. Ghosts of mothers in her cookbook, ghosts of mothers past, ghosts of mothers to be.
