Today is Father's Day, so you might expect that I will be writing about the worst dads in fiction. But ha! Surprise! Bad dads are too easy; they're practically stock-in-trade of novels. We are going back to moms.
Readers responded to my Mother's Day column about the nine worst mothers in literature with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, and dozens of suggestions, including some bad moms I wasn't familiar with.
For instance: "Cathy Ames, 'East of Eden,' a true psychopath," wrote Pamela Aasen of Golden Valley.
I was going to look her up — it's been decades since I read that book — but fortunately Pete Havanac of Blaine also voted for "the vile and notorious Cathy Ames," and he included some useful details:
"She murders her parents and burns down her family home," Havanac wrote. "She marries Adam Trask and moves with him to the Salinas Valley, where she continues her evil ways, eventually abandoning her husband and children and moving to town to operate a brothel. I can't list all the bad things she did over an extended period, but it shocked me when I read the book."
But wait — don't settle on her; there's more.
Lisa Paradis of Eden Prairie suggests Ora Baxter from "The Yearling," the morbidly obese mother who withheld love from her son because she had lost so many children. (But was she bad? Or pitiful?)
Lynette Lamb of Minneapolis suggests Penny Greenway Blair from Ann Packer's "The Children's Crusade." Penny did not love her children equally and perhaps did not love her youngest child at all. (You want to portray an unnatural mother? Try one who does not love her children.)
