Mother’s Day: A Short Story by Renée Knight
My rating: 3/5 cats
today is mother’s day, which is like yom kippur or arbor day in the powerpoint presentation of “holidays in which i have no personal stake,” but i figured i would read this short story in order to feel like a celebrant while you’re all out buying last-minute bouquets and eating brunch.
i like to give authors their three-book due, so even though i did not like Disclaimer (where ‘did not like’ is me being very polite), i figured i would read this and see if she was better in the short story medium, with less room to make a mess of things.
and it’s…fine. if you’re any kind of reader you will clock what is going on here pretty early, and it’s a competent treatment of a done-to-death scenario, but even in this short story form, there are some lumps of the “well, if we accept this, then how much of this is…this?” variety—where the author is so focused on the reveal, they neglect to clean up the loose ends.
it’s like some kid crouched giggling under a table at a surprise party, anticipating the imminent shocked delight of the birthday girl so much that they don’t even notice the house is on fire.
which is overly dramatic of me and i’m probably just jelly of all you people eating brunch.
so here: the story is fine—much better than Disclaimer, even though it’s predictable and a bit sloppy.
now i go eat cold pizza.
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