Graveyard of Lost Children

 I received an ARC from Netgalley in return for an honest review. On that note, I was honestly engrossed, unnerved, and moved. 

“She'd liked listening to podcasts like this because, though the stories were awful, they felt like preparation. The more she listened, the more she learned. The more she learned, the better she could protect herself. Now she knew that was ridiculous. There was nothing that could protect you from the world. Nothing that could protect you for the ways the world, and your own body, would betray you.”

Olivia just had a baby with her wife, Kris. She'd been raised by her grandparents after her mother attempted to murder her as an infant.er grandmother wasn't particularly maternal. Olivia soon has reason to fear that whatever, or whoever, plagued her mother is coming for her. We're told this story from Olivia's POV, but also through journal entries from her mother, Shannon. For various reasons, neither is a reliable narrator. 

I chose not to have children, but you can't be perceived as being a woman without fully understanding what's expected of mothers. In fact, the choice to not have children instantly gives you a failing grade. But if you do have them, then the real pressure begins. 

Stephen King writes in Danse Macabre that the real horror in Amityville Horror is economic unease. The house is a money pit, destroying the family financially. “Here is a movie for every woman who ever wept over a plugged-up toilet or a spreading water stain on the ceiling from the upstairs shower; for every man who ever ever did a slow burn when the weight of the snow cause this gutters to give way; for every child who every jammed his fingers and felt that the door or window that did the jamming was out to get him.” ... “Think of the bills,” a woman sitting behind me in the theater moaned at one point ... but I suspect it was her bills she was thinking about.”

The real horror in Graveyard is maternal/parental unease more than the supernatural angle. Giving birth starts the ultimate gamble – of mind, body, and spirit, and the fun is just beginning. Will the child be healthy? Happy? Not set fire to the neighborhood pets? What is the instinct to love the child that we're supposed to all have just doesn't show up? What does it mean if you can't nurse? Nothing and perhaps everything. And almost always one parent is the primary caregiver for a variety of factors, societal and practical.

Olivia has questions and fears, nursing is agony, and everyone is wondering if she might be prone to do what HER mother did. As she struggles, she wonders that too, and feels safe telling no one. A black-haired woman is stalking her that no one else sees? Who would you tell if you suspect your baby is an imposter? And who would you tell if you were her if your mother were institutionalized for the same beliefs? 

The book is about fear, pressure, pain, doubt, postpartum depression and psychosis. Child or not, if you suffer from depression, anxiety, and/or intrusive thoughts, the black-haired woman comes with her own soundtrack, and that soundtrack is “Hello, darkness, my old friend.” 

This is a heavy read, and I had to balance it with a romance novel. I didn't think anything could top They Drown Our Daughters in terms of angst, but Katrina Monroe actually succeeded in this book upping the ante. Please be advised in case the topics Graveyard concerns are detrimental to your well-being.

Like They Drown Our Daughters, for all the fear and pain, it's also a story about mothers and daughters, and the choices we make in the name of those bonds.   

4.5 stars. The resolution, if I'm going to nitpick, seemed a bit rushed.