Monsterlijk moederschap. Van Rosemary’s Baby tot Nightbitch

Monsterlijk moederschap is a perceptive, personal and profound coming-of-age story about the expectations, fears and paradoxes of motherhood. With a personal, literary style, journalist-essayist Jozefien Van Beek places her story within a broader social and cultural context.

From classics like Psycho and Carrie to the paintings of Alice Neel to the personal reflections of Joan Didion and Chantal Akerman: everywhere mothers appear as suffocating or absent, manipulative or downright terrifying.

Based on her own viewing history and inspired by feminist thinkers, Van Beek interweaves autobiography with analysis. She departs from her own childhood and eventually has a child of her own. Could it be that not only mothers are monstrous, but also motherhood itself?

Jozefien Van Beek (1985) is a journalist and critic. She writes about visual arts and literature for De Standaard and reviews books for De Groene Amsterdammer and de Volkskrant. She was the founder and editor-in-chief of Oogst, a magazine about film, art and literature.