Moms who go to extremes in crime novels – and drive the action ‹ CrimeReads

Let’s look at three types of mothers who can drive the action in crime films without turning into the evil “Bad Mother” style. I’m going to call these guys “Status Queen,” “Absentee Mom” ​​(obviously not a term I made up), and “Winning Mom” ​​(aka “Hero”).

Article continues after advertisement

I want to show how each type drives the plot in two 2020s novels, that of Lori Rader-Day The death of us (2023) and David Heska Wanbli Weidens Winter counts (2020).

The status queen

This character type puts so much emphasis on appearance and social status that they disregard the mental or emotional well-being of their children. In fiction, a status queen character is usually cast as a villain because she ultimately harms her family even as she fights to secure her status.

Before focusing on this type, let’s remember the psychoanalytic way of reading books in which each character represents a quality that can manifest itself in almost anyone.

Queen Ann Short Bear

Ann Short Bear is described in Winter counts as a rich Osage woman who looks down on the people around her on the Lakota reservations from the height of her great wealth. “Tall, thin, elegant, she…shopped for her clothes in Santa Fe, San Francisco and Dallas” and she “charged a monthly clothing allowance…more than what most people here made in a year.” What keeps her from part of being completely evil is that she wants her children to have the best of the best: an Ivy League education and high-paying careers. As poignant and sleazy as these goals may be, when compared to Ann’s utter contempt for the suffering of all people, they are at least an indication that Ann wants something fundamental – an attempt to raise her children amid the slings and arrows of late capitalism protect.

Winter counts is set in the present day on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations, and the story’s narrator, Virgil, happens to be in love with Ann’s daughter Marie. Ann’s role in Virgil’s story is simple: she’s a comical thorn in Virgil’s side, driving him to a greater love and appreciation for his down-and-out friends, whose insights he’ll need as the story progresses. Ultimately, the reader is left to form their own opinion about how much Ann knows about the true costs of staying on top in her status-defined world.

Queen Patty: The extreme advocate

“Status” often means “status quo” to a Status Queen character. As in Winter countsthe status queen in The death of us represents status as defined by the generation before the main character’s generation. Patty Kehoe, “Patrician” to the nth degree, is a small-town queen who cares for her former police chief husband, scarred by time and living mute and wheelchair-bound, while she fends off threats to her reputation endanger many corners of the community.

Patty, eyebrows raised and aging angrily, exudes anger for her daughter-in-law, Liss Kehoe. Liss, one of the main characters in The death of usShe laments: “Why couldn’t Patty, rather than her husband, be the one to lose her sharp edges? Her mother-in-law could have used some filing.” Patty goes to extremes to upset Liss, who is raising Patty’s grandson. Concern about why Patty might be so terrible to Liss drives the reader to learn more, and drives Liss herself to delve deeper into the motivations of those closest to her, even if what she finds is earth-shattering is.

The absent mother

In both cases the figure of the status queen Winter counts And The death of usdrive the story forward most directly by uncomfortably cheering on the main characters and piquing the reader’s curiosity about the reasons behind their extreme efforts to preserve the status of the previous generation. These characters maintain an overbearing, antagonistic presence in these novels.

In contrast, the absent mothers in both stories fundamentally shake things up through the extreme absoluteness of their absence.

Two absent mothers of two teenagers

The teenager’s biological mother, Liss, is growing up with us The death of us disappeared when he was a toddler and it is suspected early on that he met a tragic end. She set Liss’s voluntary parenthood in motion when, as one of her final acts before her disappearance, she placed her son in Liss’s arms. The biological mother of the teenage nephew Virgil, who is growing up here Winter counts was Virgil’s beloved sister, taken too soon by a car accident. Her death made Virgil decide to protect this boy in every way in a world where drugs and violence are part of everyday life.

By serving as an inescapable backdrop to the path of voluntary parenthood of two main characters, the absence of these bio-mothers makes the nobility of the choice more clearly visible.

More on this?

I venture into deeper psychoanalytic territory and suggest that the early absence of these birth mothers from their stories may also reflect the disappearance of a birth mother’s personality when conversations about pregnancy are heavily focused on the well-being of the unborn child. Although neither of these books deals remotely explicitly with reproductive choice, they both portray bio-mothers as extinct (through disappearance or tragic death). And both increase the choice itself by highlighting main characters who are parents by choice.

The mother who wants to win it

This character is a mother or mother figure who is heroic in the adversity she faces, the discomfort and danger she throws herself into, and the unwavering perseverance she shows when faced she struggles to help a child who may or may not want the help. but who really needs that?

In Winter countsThis role is filled by both the main character, Virgil, and his romantic partner, Marie, who seeks to encourage and support the growth of not only Virgil’s nephews, but their entire tribal community through her work in food distribution. In The death of usLiss is undoubtedly willing to sacrifice her entire life for the boy she raised, either in small, painful steps or all at once.

Interestingly, there are a few additional characteristics that Marie and Liss have in common: both are professionals who battle bitter, unethical and toxic bosses at work and pull off an impossible dance with a status queen at home (or in their family life). . And both are volunteer parent figures trying to help teenage boys who are at risk of slipping from the edge of safety into darkness.

Not the deadly kind

In my debut novel, Boots Marez is the mother who wants to win. Not the deadly kind. As the principal of a progressive K-8 academy she founded to help undocumented families, Boots must regularly face challenges to her vision of education from both a status queen on her parents’ board and a sociopathic boss in her Ask a Question. When her teenage adopted son Jaral goes to prison for the murder of a former student but apparently doesn’t ask her for help, Boots wonders if he would have wanted to stay with his bio-mother, who is now no longer with him due to life their addiction problems.

Despite Jaral’s growing distance from her, Boots risks her reputation, her livelihood, and her life to shine a spotlight on a community accustomed to living in secret to find the real killer and free her son, and is discovered a darker web of secrets that has previously hidden in plain sight.

Take a look Not the deadly kindplus Winter counts And The death of us if you’re a crime reader who might get lost in stories about parents going to extremes, pushing aside status queens and pushing forward to protect vulnerable children, even as the pain of absence and loss weighs on all their efforts threatens to overshadow.

***