Five of the worst mothers in literary history

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well. One of Somers's five worst mothers in literary history, as shared at B & N Reads:

Sophie Portnoy from Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth

If it isn’t a standard belief that mothers should not stand outside the bathroom while their sons defecate and then demand they not flush so their output can be examined, then by gum, it should be. Sophie Portnoy is the sort of mother only novelists and psychiatrists can imagine, a woman so smothering and domineering she’s at the root of all her son’s “complaints”—including the (frequently awful and disturbing) sexual ones, which push her well into Monstrous Mother territory despite the black humor surrounding her every utterance and action in Roth’s infamous novel.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Portnoy's Complaint is among Jay Rayner's six best books, Oren Smilansky's very funny books, David Denby's six favorite books, and Matthew Pearl's top ten books inspired by Edgar Allan Poe.

--Marshal Zeringue