Mother is Watching by Karma Brown

I’ve got another book by Canadian author Karma Brown to talk about, and this is a bit of a departure from her other novels which I review here and here, among others that she’s published. Her latest book Mother is Watching is a work of horror, so compared to her previous releases of romance and literary fiction (with an edge), Brown has taken a very new direction with her writing, but has done so with great success. This is her sixth novel, and in the acknowledgements she explains that horror has always been her first love, and I can see why; a slow build of suspense is something she has always excelled at, but in this book, we are pushed into a world that none of us will recognize, but one we can vividly imagine with her help.

Plot Summary

Taking place in the near but undisclosed future, we meet Tilly, a 39-year-old mother and wife, living in Savannah Georgia. She lives a fairly happy life with close friends,and a job she loves as an art conservator. She’s quietly grieving the miscarriage of another child from a few years ago, and struggling to get pregnant again with her husband, but is excited about a new project that has just landed in her lap; the restoration of a previously unknown painting called “The Mother” by famous painter, Charlotte Leclerc. The portrait is badly burned from the fire that also took Leclerc’s life, and Tilly is given the top-secret job of restoring it as best as possible, as it is worth a large sum of money. Leclerc was a mysterious woman who used organic matter in her paintings, including pieces of insects, hair and skin, even human blood. Then a miracle occurs; Tilly finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and she is overjoyed. To continue her work while further along in her pregnancy, the painting is moved to her home studio, but once there, distressing occurrences begin to haunt Tilly’s daily life. Unexplained infestations, eerie voices and appearances, even the painting itself seems to come alive, convincing Tilly that it is a personification of evil itself. Even worse, the baby growing inside Tilly seems to respond to the painting in a strange way, forcing her to question the implications of this surprise pregnancy. Does the painting have actual powers, or is it all in Tilly’s pregnancy-focused mind? As her pregnancy progresses, the line between reality and imagination are blurred further and further, for both Tilly and the reader.

My Thoughts

In this near future, pregnant women are closely monitored due to the decreased birthrates of that time, so Tilly’s movements are limited more and more, all in the name of procreation. It is originally framed as a protection measure for both babies and their mothers, and as someone who had experienced a previous miscarriage, Tilly is relieved for the extra support. However, once she realizes how closely her movements and vitals are tracked by her medical team and husband, she begins to push back against this control. The pre and postnatal stages of motherhood are always ripe for horror, but Brown takes it one step further by setting this book in a world that we don’t live in, but will recognize. Climate change and global pandemics are all referenced as factors for driving this control of women’s bodies, which should strike a fear into the heart of every reader. How far will society exert control over procreation when the continuation of the human race is at stake? Although this isn’t the focus of the book, it serves to create a creepy atmosphere that seems just barely out of the realm of possibility for us readers, layering horror upon horror in the plot.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of my favourite books, so if that appeals to you, you’ll enjoy this novel too. Like that famous example, the slow build of suspense is done really well too; there are small but ominous signs that signal the descent into the macabre, including eerie messages from those who have already passed, strange reactions from the family dog (animal instincts are a real thing!) and the subtle changes in the painting from day to day. Pacing is difficult to manage when writing a horror novel; if you move too fast into the scary stuff, the reader feels cheated out of the spooky build. If it takes too long to get to the scary stuff, most people will get bored, and some will give up altogether. Brown strikes the perfect timing and tone in this one, so I hope she decides to write in this genre more often.