Review: 'There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In,' by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Banned writers during the Soviet era have offered us a picture of the human spirit rising above circumstance and nobly eluding the force of fascism. You will find none of that in this book. Rather, it details the human animal, cornered, grabbing with both grubby paws for material survival, becoming in the process twisted, destructive and ill-humored. If dissident literature gave us martyrs, expat Russian Ludmilla Petrushevskaya gives us a wolverine stuck up to its neck in muck, still snapping at any stray food that scampers by, begging from passing hands and biting them for having to beg.

In the three novellas that make up "There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In," her characters are true Marxian "products of their environments" — that being, in this case, "stagnation," the period that ran from the end of World War II to perestroika. Out of this poisonous brew, Petrushevskaya draws forth her frightening, infuriating, unforgettable characters,

In "The Time Is Night," Anna, a former poet, is becoming a hag, her only refuge from misery her vicious tongue, with which she drives away anyone and everyone who might love her, except for her adored toddler grandson — and even there, it's too late for love and light. Clawing for scraps — of food, money, work — she inflicts herself where she knows she's not wanted, but has to be: at the home of unwilling friends, dunning up piece work at her former office, taking an Underground Man-like pleasure in the distaste her presence creates.

She's poured her self-loathing onto her daughter — remarking on the girls' body odor, acne, probable syphilis, venereal lice, etc., from the time she's reached puberty. Every awful family dynamic is magnified by the claustrophobia within their small apartment and the anxiety without. Lateral aggression runs rampant, and the pair gnaw at each other like dogs in a kennel that can't get at whatever is tormenting them on the other side of the fence. Anna's insults are vicious, her decisions disastrous, yet we can't help respecting that wolverine spirit, the crazed determination to cadge just one more thing, to get through the day when the time is still night.

"Chocolates With Liqueur" was inspired by an Edgar Allan Poe story. Unlike Poe's work, however, this one really frightens. The villain — an abusive husband — is scary enough. But the heroine's passivity, right up until the last paragraph, is truly terrifying. Her resignation is eerie and tragic; she seems sepulchral, a living ghost. The suspense involves whether she will rouse herself in time to save her own and her children's lives.

The mother in the last tale, "Among Friends," is certainly not passive. She's a member of one of those incestuous backbiting cliques that drink together, bicker and swap partners as the years go by. They make this "circle of friends" airtight so they can swagger before one another, but when an outsider comes in they are too terrified to speak; they already know one of their members is an informer.

The heroine's grim honesty antagonizes the group. "I have always had a very negative opinion of you," one pontificates. Convinced she's about to orphan her only son, she needs to secure his safety. How she does it has caused people to show up at Petrushevskaya's readings simply to attack her. When people protest the actions of a fictional character, it's obvious the author's done something right.

These novellas come straight from and go straight to a place in us we'd like to keep hidden. They flash into your mind, like portraits done in lightning, and then … they stay there.

Emily Carter is a writer in Connecticut and the author of "Glory Goes and Gets Some," published by Coffee House Press.