Tracy Lynne Oliver is a writer based in Los Angeles. She has been published online at a variety of places such as Medium, Fanzine, and Occulum. She co-authored the graphic novel, The Sacrifice of Darkness, with Roxane Gay. Her story, “This Weekend” was included in Best Microfiction 2019.
Her new book, Magician, is "dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all."
At The Nerd Daily Oliver tagged seven notable bad mom books, including:
Carrie by Stephen KingRead about the other books on the list.
I would like to think (or hope) that most everyone has seen the 1976 movie, “Carrie” based on the debut novel by Stephen King. (Or perhaps it’s just my SK fanaticism that leads me to assume this.) Even though I was only eight years old when the movie was released, I know I must have watched it as–havingno knowledge of menstruation–I’ll never forget being thoroughly confused by the shower scene. With the blood, flying tampons and pads along with the teenage girl chants of “Plug it up! Plug it up!” it all felt very puzzling and a bit scary.
The movie’s impact on my juvenile self, eventually led me to pick up the novel hoping to get some insight into why Margaret White, Carrie White’s mother, was so cruel to her. Her abuse going as far as wanting to (spoiler alert!) murder her. The novel drops plenty of traumatic tidbits about Margaret’s childhood that sow the seeds of how she grew into the religious fanatic that would come to regularly lock Carrie in the “prayer closet” to atone for whatever manufactured “sin” she assumed her daughter had made. The disturbing depiction of a mother laying her own issues on the mind and body of her daughter obviously made an impact on my young psyche.
Carrie is on Amy Engel's list of five top titles in the complicated literature of daughters & mothers, Lizzy Barber's list of five of the most chilling extreme religion believers in fiction, Katie Lowe's top ten list of books about angry women, Jo Jakeman's list of the ten best revenge novels, Ania Ahlborn's list of ten of the scariest books of all time, Jeff Somers's list of the five worst mothers in literary history, Becky Ferreira's list of six of the most memorable bullies in literature, Julie Buntin's list of favorite literary kids with deadbeat and/or absent dads, Gregg Olsen's top ten list of deadly YA books, and James Dawson's top ten list of books to get you through high school.
--Marshal Zeringue
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