The Murderous Infertile Character
I recently read a book with my cousin for our book club of two. I want to talk about why I don’t think it should have been published, but I don’t want to name the book. Of course, if you want to know the book, send me an email because I’m happy to tell you. But I (1) don’t want to ruin it for someone who doesn’t feel the same way I do and (2) I don’t want to shame the author because I believe she proves my point by repeating a myth that she probably learned from reading books.
So two things. (Well, there are more things, but these are the two big things.)
The first reason is the less problematic but annoying trope that keeps popping up in books. It’s the modern-day version of “the butler did it.” If there is a woman who is behaving erratically or irrationally or rudely, she is, without a doubt, infertile. And if there is a perfectly nice infertile woman in a novel, she is—without fail—the murderer. And she murders because of her baby obsession. The infertile woman has become the new Chekhovian gun. If you introduce an infertile woman in the first act, she needs to murder someone by the third.
In this book, it is particularly offensive because the character is described as “obsessed” simply because she is struggling with infertility. Other characters trying to build their family are presented as strong and maternal. An infertile woman doing the same thing is “on a mission for a baby… It’s like she’s possessed.”
The second reason is much more problematic, and it is the real reason I think this book shouldn’t have been published in the first place. The first reason is annoying. The second reason is dangerous.
People reading fiction knowing it’s not fact, but it also informs their understanding of the world. Think about all the cultures or professions or places you’ve learned about—not from a textbook but through fiction.
So in this book, a woman has a child out of wedlock. The man she marries (while the child is a baby) decides to present himself as the child’s father because he just loves him so much, and the mother goes along with this idea, keeping the child’s history a secret from the child.
There are no consequences to this decision. The decision is not presented in the book and then used later to show why humans have a right to know their history and how detrimental it can be to withhold adoption information from a child. The child never learns their origin story, and the family never grapples with destroyed trust. Instead, his parents die—saints who just loved their son to bits—and the book ends with no comment on this myth. It never loops back and explains that parents shouldn’t pretend adoption never happened.
And so another book is out there, perpetuating this myth. Which, by the way, had zero impact on the plot. It didn’t need to be there and didn’t move the story forward. Such a frustrating read.
9 comments
Oh. No. I’m going to need the title of this one for sure. Those are the types of plot points that put me in a bad mood for days. I hope this is simply ignorance on the part of the author, lack of experience, but as an infertile woman who also adopted – wow. This makes me both angry and sad.
I thought for sure I knew which book you were talking about with the murdering infertile woman but now I think the book I read is a different one.
I was so mad about the book I read that I emailed the book blog which recommended it. And I got back a response that basically said this was a matter of differing taste. I’ve been sitting with that email for over a month now trying to decide if I write back because this isn’t about differing taste, it’s about perpetuating harmful and inaccurate stereotypes and this blogger shouldn’t be using her platform to boost books like this. But are infertile women a category that can be defended with this? If it was a book that had harmful and inaccurate stereotypes about BIPOC then I’d push back for sure. But infertile women aren’t in the same category. But we’re also not, at least I think, something that should be stereotyped.
I haven’t sent a second email. But I still think about it!
Okay, I want to know the book title too! Stuff like that is just infuriating. As Turia points out, there are lots of tropes and stereotypes that people now acknowledge as harmful and try to avoid — but apparently infertile/childless women are still fair game. :p
Add me to the list that wants to know the book title too! It’s a surprisingly pervasive trope in literature – I know I’ve run across it in several books (and I bet they’re totally separate titles from this one). It also shows up in other media – I was furious when I watched the first two episodes of the show “Dead to Me” (haven’t watched past those and won’t spoil exactly how that plays out in those episodes). I think my parents – who were watching with us way back in The Time Before Pandemic – were a bit surprised by how much it upset me!
I agree that this seems to be a common trope in fiction these days. (And I, too, am curious about the name of the book, just so that I can avoid it.)
I read Little Fires Everywhere last year, and so many of my friend raved about it and loved it. . . but I couldn’t get past the fact that I felt that an underlying message of that book was that no one can love a child like the child’s biological mother. As a mother who conceived her children with donated ova and who seriously considered adoption, this message is one with which I disagree and find offensive.
This is a common and annoying trope. I had started, but didn’t publish a post about a couple of TVshows that used the trope of the crazy infertile. One was especially heartbreaking. A couple was unable to adopt because the husband had a criminal record so they arranged a back-room adoption with the help of a corrupt lawyer. They weren’t guilty of murdering the mother, but they were treated as if they were the worst kind of criminals for the entire show.
In the other one, the infertile mother had a “real baby” doll that she refused to believe wasn’t real and the maker stole it back and she called the police for kidnapping and it was a whole insane thing that I’ve mostly put out of my mind.
I wrote about it a little bit in this post:
https://hopelessinfertile.wordpress.com/2018/05/08/thoughts-on-the-have-nots/
where I was comparing the situation of the infertile in the media with that of the incel in the media.
I would like to know the title too – sounds like something I would avoid right now anyway, but I don’t want to stumble across something like that and get mad at it. 🙂
I thought it was one book, but now I’m sure its not. I’d like to know the name. The trope is SO COMMON and is annoying and predictable. I am always so disappointed to see it pop up and ruin otherwise well-written and interesting books.
Ugh. I’d like to know which book not to read because everything you’ve said here makes me angry. I’m also making an assumption that the author has no first-hand knowledge of either infertility or adoption and is writing without any grounding on the subjects. As you say, fiction informs. And this author sounds not well-informed.