I'm personally a huge fan of seeing old horror tropes being reinvented or re-examined in a modern context. And who doesn't love a good ol' fashion evil spawn?
The trope of the demonic bad seed goes all the way back to the old European folklore of Changelings. Children who are just, for some unforeseeable reason, not quite right. It speaks to the rather timeless anxiety in parents that the inexplicable strangeness of their offspring is due to some unpredictable, possibly malevolent supernatural force outside of their control. In a modern context though, that trope comes with a moutain of baggage regarding the rejection and abuse of children who were, by circumstances of environment or birth, rejected from their communities and families— sometimes even subject to inhuman brutality. The uncomfortable paratext of famous horror fiction about evil children like Omen or The Bad Seed is the very real abuse and mistreatment of misunderstood, abused, mentally ill and neurodivergent children. From the medical abuse and political spindoctoring of autistic children at the hands of people like Andrew Wakefield to cases as brutal as Candice Newmaker's death during a scientifically unfounded experimental therapy for RADs, there's an uncomfortable aftertaste to the vilification of demographics as vulnerable as minors. Zoje Stage's novel Baby Teeth is an interesting reframing of many of the popular evil child horror tropes through a lense both entirely aware, and in active conversation with this loaded subject matter.
As a fresh new approach, Stage elects to tell a farmilar language from contrasting perspectives— both of the emotionally taxed primary caregiver, stay-at-home, chronically ill wife and mother Suzette, and the deviously intelligent, selectively mute, "evil" 7-year-old Hanna. This lends the narrative a much more well-rounded approach already in not dehumanizing either party entirely while maintaining the tense atmosphere required to facilitate the domestic nightmare taking place for the bulk of the book's pages.
From Suzette's perspective we get a psychological deconstruction of the mundane horror of motherhood. Suzette's chapters are filled with a genuinely brutally honest depiction of the sort of agonizing floundering trying to live with a chronic illness can cause. Anyone who's personally dealt with medical and parental neglect in their own lives may feel the descriptions of her life experiences hit a little too close to home. As someone who fits that description myself, I can attest to that. However, there's a degree in frustration with the repetitive ways Suzette knowingly allows herself to be antagonized by her child knowing full well that's exactly what her daughter is after. Grading on the nerves to read, but not entirely realistic to the ways these situations go down in real life. Stage also uses Suzette's chapters in contrast with Hanna's to explore some interesting themes of the ways parents of the same gender of their children tend to pass on wounds related to the social factors of their sex. Elements of the anxieties of supernatural influence that call back to other additions to this horror trope are incorporated in some very creative ways.
Hanna's perspective is a much more well-rounded exploration of the ways children develop anti-social behaviors than most additions to this subgenre offer. It's a surprisingly empathetic portrayal of Hanna's outrageous behavior. Many possibilities of Hanna's possible psychological condition are explored as culprits, but even towards the end it's left somewhat ambiguous as to exactly what the source of her problems are. There's a follow-up sequal book to this one being released in August that the author has given some out-of-book insight on that gives away a more concrete answer to what the nature of Hanna's mental state is, but just reading this book alone, I like the soft ambiguity of the conclusion. Hanna's chapters contain the most controversial content in the novel however— her unhealthy attachment to her father and the inappropriate ways she chooses to express it. The Electra Complex elements are again, from my interpretation, a means of exploring common "evil child" tropes. And for what it's worth, though the inclusion of those elements are by far the most disturbing parts, they are handled tastefully. Hanna's attachment to her father is kept to her only violating boundaries and mimicking behaviors she doesn't understand— no real intent to engage in a real sexual relationship with him. It's clear she's possessive of him as the parent who isn't having a mental health crisis— having interpreted her mother's instability as rejection. This is a very common way children process their parent's poor mental health, as their own fault, and it's taken the extreme turn it has more so due to her own psychological problems. As her poor behavior has isolated her socially and stopped her from forming any other bounds outside of her parents, it makes sense within the narrative that she's constructed this codependency with her father. It makes sense why she's become this fearful that her mother will threaten her one constant stable attachment.
The book overall struggles to some degree balance it's aim to be a realistic interpretation of common horror tropes and it's more over-the-top plot beats. The conclusion, though very true to life, clashes to some degree with the tone of previous sections. With the amount of tension that narrative has successfully built up, it feels somewhat like an anti-climax. Still overall, I found this enough of an engaging read I was genuinely frustrated when I realized the sequel isn't out yet. I'm personally going to be sure to get my hands on it the moment it's available.
This book doesn't offer much in terms of gore or violence, but has some absolutely fantastic descriptions of psychological horror. Though I personally would have liked a more grisly conclusion, I was very satisfied with it regardless. If you're a fan of "evil children" horror tropes, I think this acts both as a pretty good addition aswell as a deconstruction of the subject matter.
by ThisDudeisNotWell