Short Story Review: My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood

My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“I still believed that my mother had some influence over the Universe. I’d been brought up to believe it, and it’s hard to shake such ingrained mental patterns.”

Our fifteen-year-old unnamed narrator is being raised by a single mother in Toronto. Growing up she has heard the whispers, seen her mother’s herb garden and the bottles of “goop” her mother doles out to the women who visit her house for "consultations". She has also been on the receiving end of some pretty strange advice from her mother- mostly unwarranted, often intrusive and some downright weird. Why does her mother behave the way she does?

As the years progress our protagonist alternates between believing her mother is “evil”, practices witchcraft or is just troubled. As the narrative takes us through the different stages of our protagonist's life from the time she was fifteen and shared a complicated relationship with her mother that continues through her adult life to her relationship with her own fifteen-year-old daughter in which similar patterns seem to be emerging, we witness her feelings towards her mother evolving from resentment to compassion, understanding and acceptance. What a lovely tribute to mother-daughter relationships!

My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood is a fun and engaging read. Hats off to the author for being able to pack so much humor, emotion and insight into a thirty–two–page short story that is such an easy and entertaining read.