A mother who leaves her children is, even today, a figure of dread. No matter how sympathetically portrayed, she represents a rupture in the natural order, a transgression of a potent cultural taboo. Deep-seated anxiety about maternal abandonment permeates an eerie and accomplished work of speculative fiction by Molly Lynch, about a widespread phenomenon of mothers fleeing the family…
Gillian MacKay
Gillian MacKay has worked as an arts writer, critic, and editor for Canadian Art, Maclean’s, and the Globe and Mail.