‘Madwoman’ by Chelsea Bieker

About the book

The world is not made for mothers. Yet mothers made the world…

“Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation. But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As we race between her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced to finally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it save her life?

A gripping portrait of motherhood and motherloss, intimate terrorism and terrifying love, the reverberations of male violence through generations, and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, Madwoman channels immense power, wisdom, and rage, marking Chelsea Bieker as a major fiction talent.”

— Publishers blurb

Why we loved Madwoman

I connected with an editor at Little, Brown who sent me an early copy of Madwoman, and wow—I feel lucky to have read this one early.

Clove, the narrator, has a clear, distinct voice that pulled me in immediately. She’s speaking to someone directly as she narrates, asking “Do you get tater tots where you are?” I later realized she’s speaking to her mother. The fact that the entire novel is written to Clove’s mother fascinated me, especially knowing that Clove’s mother is in prison. There’s a complicated relationship between Clove and her mother, driven by the fact that they were both abused by Clove’s father.

“The world is not made for us—certainly it’s not; just try to afford preschool—but this thing I’m starting to understand, transforming from felt to known, it’s about the energy of violence. The way violence shrinks women, makes us feel lucky for things that aren’t lucky. Even when we’ve outrun it, look back—see its long reaching fingers touching every choice we’ve made.”

Now that Clove is a mother to her two children, she thinks she can leave the past behind. Instead, motherhood echoes back to her all the differences between her childhood and the childhood she is providing for her own kids. It sends Clove unraveling. The story deftly moves between modern day and her childhood, which kept me hooked. More than following the plot, I found myself engrossed in following Clove’s intimate, artistic, and emotional descriptions of her life.

This book gave me a lot to think about when it comes to motherloss, childhood trauma, and intimate partner violence. I especially loved the glimpse at Clove’s relationship with her husband and how it evolves throughout the book. She shows how they parent together, manage in-laws, and handle the truth about their past (or the lack thereof).

This book is literary suspense at its best. If you love a smart, thoughtful, well-written feminist thriller, this one is for you. See what others are saying here.

Chelsea Bieker is an author to watch

Chelsea Bieker is the author of the debut novel GODSHOT which was longlisted for The Center For Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and named a Barnes and Noble Pick of the Month. Her story collection, HEARTBROKE won the California Book Award and was a New York Times “Best California Book of 2022” and an NPR Best Book of the Year.

Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, The Cut, Wall Street Journal, McSweeney’s, Los Angeles Review of Books, Lit Hub, No Tokens, Electric Literature, and others. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, as well as residencies from MacDowell and Tin House Books.

Raised in Hawai’i and California, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.

Connect with Chelsea on Instagram.