Book Review: "With Teeth" by Kristin Arnett
“With Teeth” by Kristin Arnett
Synopsis: If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best--driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school--while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie's life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behavior, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son's hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess--and the possibility that it will never be clean again.
Blending the warmth and wit of Arnett's breakout hit, Mostly Dead Things, with a candid take on queer family dynamics, With Teeth is a thought-provoking portrait of the delicate fabric of family--and the many ways it can be torn apart.
Rating: 4.5
Review: This was a library find that took me by complete surprise. I didn’t read Arnett’s “Mostly Dead Things,” though I heard that people got a real kick out of it. From the cover blurb, I went in expecting a lesbian “We Need to Talk About Kevin” which…fuck yeah, I’m there for it. What I got, however, was a much more muddled story from an unreliable narrator.
I started out deeply sympathetic to Sammie, a stay at home mom more out of circumstance than any desire to be so, a queer woman not subverting the nuclear family but leaning into it in the most heteronormative of ways. Sammie’s son is a mystery to her, aggressive and defiant in a way that doesn’t lend itself to an easy diagnosis.
Sammie’s behavior spirals from relatable if slightly messy wine mom to something more insidious as the novel continues, though for most of the novel I understood her. Deeply bored and too intelligent for her circumstances, she decompensates in a way that makes sense for someone aimless and ambivalent about her family life. As her relationship to Monika falls apart completely, and Samson as a teen becomes even more mysterious to her, her actions veer from mildly self-destructive to a sort of passive suicidality.
The book ends with a really killer twist that took my breath away, and elucidated Sammie to us, while neatly subverting the entire plot. This book is exceptional both in its capacity to hook you and as a character study. Sammie is so unwilling to take agency for herself, so desperate to parentify her partners and abdicate herself of any responsibility, that she becomes the chief agent of her own downfall.
TL;DR: A surprising and engrossing book about the absolute worst parts of parenting, a simultaneously hilarious and terrifying story of a woman on the verge.
If you liked this, try:
“Mostly Dead Things” by Kristin Arnett (Bookshop | Kindle)
“We Need to Talk About Kevin” by (Bookshop | Kindle)
“Detransition, Baby” by Torrey Peters (Bookshop | Kindle)
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