Review: The Mother

Brett McBean is a Melbourne based author of horror and dark fiction. His short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Dark Discoveries and The Asylum Vol 3 and his debut novel The Last Motel was published through Biting Dog press last year. The Mother is his second novel and the third book to be published under the Lothian dark suspense line.

The Mother is a brilliant new offering from McBean that sees him slide among contemporaries such as Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon. A gritty, psychological horror about life, loss and identity, it follows the journey of a woman who hitchhikes up and down the Hume Highway in a desperate hunt for her daughter’s killer. As the search becomes an obsession, the lonely highway begins to transform her as she subjects herself to the best and worst of humanity.

McBean draws the reader in by setting the story from the point of view of the numerous men that pick up the mother. Through their observations that we begin to unravel the complex, compulsive mixture of guilt and anger that drives this mysterious female presence. He spends a lot of time creating a sense of lingering dread and suspense in the reader before exploding with brutal, in your face fragments of intense violence.

The novel works as an interesting, yet deeply disturbing study at what a mother will subject herself to in order to find justice for her daughter. McBean spends a lot of time exploring the notion of grief and identity within the mother – concepts that become dangerously skewed as the woman’s journey continues.

As with the Last Motel, McBean focuses on the concept of the human monster, but does so in a more subtle and mature tone than with his debut novel. The book is littered with signature McBean moments of graphic violence, rape and torture but also adds a tragic empathy to its characters, particularly with the self-destructive struggle of the Mother.

McBean manages to capture something rare in the Mother – a book that is both moving and horrific, demonstrating that good horror can do more than just scare your pants off. The Mother does for hitchhiking what Psycho did for showers and I guarantee you’ll think more than twice before thumbing a ride again.

The Mother is available now through Australian bookstores and retailers.

*Note: cover artwork is slightly different in published version