A mother with an immense desire to kill

Mara Faye Lethem (New York, 1971) writes as if she were slicing open the tender—and often rotten—flesh of contemporary motherhood with a freshly sharpened knife. A translator into English of Albert Sánchez Piñol, Pol Guasch, Jaime Cabré, Jordi Nopca, and Max Besora, she now publishes her first novel in Catalan. Crazy series if you didn'tTranslated by Miriam Cano. It's a story that begins like a typical light comedy, full of nervous giggles, mothers in the park, and clueless fathers, but it soon reveals itself as a fierce satire, a scathing portrait of the fascist trap of perfection. The protagonist, Barbara, pregnant for the second time, navigates a suburban landscape that leads to organic yogurt and anxiety. All the mothers around her are impeccable, controlled, efficient; she, on the other hand, carries the feeling of being on the verge of exploding, both body and mind.

And this is the key to the novel: the fissure between what should be felt and what is actually felt, between the saccharine (and romantic) narrative of motherhood and its dark, physical, visceral side. Lethem shines a light on these shadows with a voice that dares to verbalize what many keep silent due to a misunderstood, atavistic tradition. There is in the style of Crazy series if you didn't a brutal sincerity, a kind of savage realism that recalls, in tone, the novels of Rachel Cusk or of Sheila HetiBut with a harsher, more Mediterranean irony. The language is direct, unvarnished, with moments of dark humor that function like Malayan torture: they wound but also soothe. The reader laughs, but uncomfortably, aware that behind each hilarious scene lurks an old rage. Lethem knows that motherhood is not only the protective instinct or the image of infinite tenderness, but also the loss of control, an assault against oneself. And Barbara's story—with its ferocious thoughts, contradictions, and weary gaze upon the exemplary world that surrounds her—is the dirty mirror where all these tensions are reflected.

A novel charged with electricity

The writing is admirably agile: nothing is superfluous, and every page contains a subterranean electricity that doesn't go unnoticed. Lethem plays with discomfort, with humor that borders on panic, with domestic details that become symbols of impending disaster. The suburban neighborhood atmosphere is so easily recognizable it hurts: the conversations in the park, the tutoring sessions, the children's parties, the couples who live for appearances. The novel is a first-rate social portrait and also functions as an emotional autopsy. Barbara observes, feels, hates, desires, doubts. And in that chaos, one truth resonates: the truth of all women who have had to feign serenity while the world (and their bodies) demanded something else. Crazy series if you didn't It's a scream disguised as laughter, a comedy that cracks from within, revealing the wound. And that wound—raw, brilliant, necessary—is, without a doubt, its literary victory.

Barbara has two striking features: mercury-colored eyes and an immense thirst for killing. The title could have been A pregnant assassinWhen the rollercoaster of her hormones takes over, she lashes out at Brian, her husband, suffers an unjustified fit of jealousy toward Cate, or commits a few murders without a second thought. Barbara doesn't just kill bodies, but versions of herself. Her act of cutting off the head of the toy rabbit isn't an accident; it's a prelude. Barbara kills to regain her sense of self, to remember herself alive amidst diapers and expectations. Murder isn't a crime; it's rebellion: an alternative, brutal, and lucid form of motherhood that strips away domestic fiction, leaving only flesh and guilt.