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A first time mum struggles with her newborn baby. An alien
examines the lives of Earth Mothers. A baby sleeps through the night at long
last.
Written
with raw honesty, Laura Besley's debut flash collection, The
Almost Mothers, exposes what it really means to be a mother. |
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PRAISE
FOR THE ALMOST MOTHERS
“Glimpses
into the multifaceted world of motherhood with honesty, beauty and humour” ~
Mahsuda Snaith
“Laura Besley has created a
cast of memorable, poignant, characters in powerful, contemporary and
futuristic stories, laced with a dash of humour, that reveal various nuanced,
acutely-observed aspects of motherhood” ~ Emma LEe
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Laura
Besley writes short (and very short) fiction in the precious moments that her
children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online (Fictive Dream, Spelk,
EllipsisZine) as well as in print (Flash: The International Short Story
Magazine) and in various anthologies (Adverbally Challenged, Another Hong
Kong, Story Cities).
The Almost Mothers is her first collection.
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The Almost Mothers (Dahlia Publishing) is the debut collection
of Laura Besley, twenty-six flash fictions about ‘what it really means to be a
mother.’
Besley’s collection opens with ‘Mothers Anonymous’, in which one mother
goes against the group ethos ‘we’re not here to judge’. In five short paragraphs,
Besley evokes some key mother tropes to present motherhood as something outside
one’s control, with varying results. She explores the compulsion some women
feel to have children, even if their experience of motherhood doesn’t sustain
them or is bad for their health, leaving the reader with the sense that
motherhood is a disease; women are not in control; motherhood is greater than
the individual.
In ‘Playing at Being Grown-Ups’, two girls discuss the ramifications of
failing to look after a virtual bay for a school class that predicts their
suitability to be mothers. Framed by the portentous blowing of bubble-gum, this
story will have varying impacts for different readers as it raises questions
about who gets to decide who is fit to have children, which is a frequent subject
of debate from back yards, to tabloids, to child welfare offices, as well as
what happens to the data that is collected about us.
The third story in the collection, ‘Getting Ahead’, explores the
futility of regarding a child’s development in comparison with others, as a
sort of race. It pairs well with a later story, ‘Let Love Lead the Way’, as
both stories mine the school yard antics of parents as well as children. This, like the previous stories, feels confidently written, from a distinct voice that has a lot to say.
From the beginning of life, we jump to the end with the next story. ‘Near
and Far’ gives us an adult child’s perspective of their mother, revealing genetics
has little power over warmth and food when it comes to bonding. It also illustrates
the absence of opportunity for a child to consent to anything that happens to
them, which, if extrapolated, raises questions for all of us, whatever age we
are, about what age we must be to have agency over our own lives.
‘Everything’s Fine’ is another story that has its twin in this
collection. A mother hides her exhaustion from a doctor, the subtext brought
into relief by the foreshadowing of ‘Playing at Being Grown-Ups’. These stories
form a cohesive whole and the collection feels slick and well curated. And here
it takes a turn into the unexpected, which injects some energy into what might
otherwise feel, well, mothered.
‘Down to Earth’ is a refreshingly brief list story in which an alien
from outer-space contemplates the aids and impediments to human population
increase. Besley’s stories are deceptively simple, and its often the smallest
ones that provoke the greatest thoughts. Conversely, perhaps the least realised
of the stories is ‘All the Children’, which, in its use of gendered colour for
shorthand, jarred with the thoughtfulness of the other stories, felt like it
needed to be longer.
‘Wish Upon a Star’ was the least explained of the stories and the most
powerful for it. It hints at Sudden Infant Death Syndrome without venturing
into what could in less skilled hands become sentimental or irksome storytelling.
When Besley gets the balance right, as she frequently does, the stories really
stand out.
The mundane routine of motherhood is countered by the excitement of
shoplifting for the middle-class mother in ‘Hooked’, another great companion
piece for the collection’s opening story, ‘Mothers Anonymous.’ Class issues run
through this collection. In ‘Breakthrough in Motherhood Programme’, “unwanted
motherhood” is countered with a sort of ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’
cure. Economics and class-discrimination, sexism and social control are all
touched upon in this deceptively simple story.
‘How to Grow Your Own Baby’ reads like a critique of the oversimplified
advice thrown at mothers who have fertility issues and has a prose poem quality
that supplies freshness at the almost half-way point of the collection. Perhaps
it’s the change of tone, then, that makes ‘That Face’ stand out as heavy-handed;
where other stories leave the reader to work something out, invest something of
themselves, this story feels the most made-up. With a further edit, it could
have the impact it self-declares it has.
2056: A New Generation imagines a future with a dwindling population and
provides a nice counter perspective to ‘Down to Earth’. It’s clear that Besley
has thought this collection through, tested her own story-telling skills in the
process, successfully. Unsurprisingly, then, the most successful story in the
collection is the one it takes its title from. ‘The Almost Mother’ is about what
the word ‘mother’ means. In one interpretation, it could be said that it explores
the word’s ability to destroy those who invest their trust in it.
‘Supermum’ is a funny take on the standards mothers are held to and the
hypocrisy of those who often boast their perfection in public while practicing
what they preach against at home. The humour continues into tragedy in ‘To Cut
a Long Story Short’ in this look at the ridiculous length mothers can go to for
some time to themselves, all while their babies sabotage their every effort, then
trying to give the impression that everything is totally OK.
In ‘Breaking the Seal’ a woman contemplates opening an envelope that
will give details of a child, presumably that she can adopt, with all the hallmarks
and incumbent subtext of a mother putting off lifting a baby from a cot.
‘That Apple’ is an excellent story about how women turn on their own.
Another particularly strong story is ‘In Hiding’. Besley shines when she
ventures into speculative fiction and alternate history, redolent of The
Handmaid’s Tale, as she evokes the horrors of the Nazi occupation in this story
about a woman who hides her child in a cupboard, which could also be a metaphor
for pregnancy itself.
‘The Unmothers’ imagines a world where women are abandoned by their
partners if they do not produce a child. This story raises more questions and also
highlights the absence or limited role of fathers in this collection.
Besley is again on strong ground with this fairy-tale-like story ‘Hello,
Again,’ and a fairy godmother character every new mother will recognise. In another
fairy-tale, ‘Guilt Trip’, a fairy is rebuked by her superior for spending too
much on “guilt dust” to keep mothers in check, cleverly sprinkling in reference
to the real bureaucracy women face when they become mothers. Beautifully
understated and probably my favourite of the collection.
Rivalry is a strong theme in many of these stories, bringing to focus
how women are pitted against one another in our society, and ‘Let Love Lead the
Way’ is a good example of it. Though predominantly hetero-normative, these
stories cover a huge range of experiences women have prior to, during and post
pregnancy, as well as when they become mothers.
‘Not All Linings are Silver’ is another story touching upon government
intervention, with some comparable features to ‘Breakthrough in Motherhood
Programme’, but it goes further, moving into the territory of bodily autonomy,
agency and consent. A scarily prescient read.
‘A Bedtime Story’ is a reminder that mothers aren’t necessarily
biological. Which leads nicely to the final story, ‘The Motherhood Contract’, a
story to dispel all the myths of motherhood. These stories, as so many of the pieces in this collection, would make excellent study pieces for students at high school and beyond and I'd love to see Besley expand her ideas into longer works of fiction.
Overall, Besley has produced an impressive debut, a tight collection that delivers some
hard-hitting stories about what it means to be a mother. What is surprising is
that it also reveals what it means to not be a mother. All packaged in deliciously
deceptive bubble-gum pink. In
a period of history where women's bodies are under threat, Besley's work is
necessary and she and her publisher Dahlia are to be commended and supported. Buy this book.
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