Let's face it: parenting basically is magical realism. There are lovely moments that glisten like an iridescent bubble rising to the sky, yucky moments that slime like an otherworldly mold, and terrible moments that snarl like a creature in a cave. Novels and short stories that place parenthood under a distorted, almost familiar lens show us the daily fears, challenges, anxieties, absurdities, and joys that we face when raising humans. What you'll notice is that many of the titles in this list have dark and terrifying premises bordering on horror stories, which will either make your parenting reality seem like sunshine and rainbows by comparison, or else be a trigger (consider yourself warned).
This anthology of 76 collected stories and essays on things parents don't openly talk about is both heavy and refreshing. From a father who sends his daughter back to the sea to a child consumed by lice, these pieces explore the dark psychological underbelly of parents using magical realism and fables.
We can't get enough of this book. (Can there please be a sequel, Victor??) This 2018 fantasy-horror novel with strokes of magical realism is a fatherhood fable at its core. While describing the plot gives away way too many spoilers for this keeps-you-on-your-toes, slightly disturbing novel, it revolves around a New York City father's search for his missing infant son that slowly transforms from gritty real life to surrealism and magic. Themes include postpartum depression and anxiety (maternal and paternal), and feral, primal joy and agony of becoming a parent. (Oh, and there's a birth scene on the Subway and an island of witches. Just do yourself a favor and read it. It's powerful AF.)
You've probably heard that this has been made into a film of the same name, released in 2024 and starring Amy Adams, but believe us when we say that the 2021 novel is better. Sometimes magical realism is best left to literature, especially when it comes to the nuanced insanity of modern American motherhood. A cathartic read for any mother who has felt the pull of feral instincts after having children, Nightbitch centers on an artist-turned-mother who believes she's transforming into an actual dog. "Nightbitch," the alter ego that emerges as a hairy, snarling, rabbit-chasing dog, seems at first to be at odds with being a good mother. The lesson of the novel is the importance of integrating various identities: Mother, Wife, Artist...Person? Nightbitch? Whatever the selves, Nightbitch reminds how crucial it is to rediscover an authentic sense of self in the face of parenthood.
This novel is what happens when magical realism meets an anthem for tired, over judged parents. In The School for Good Mothers, a Chinese-American woman named Frida is sent away to an experimental facility that rehabilitates mothers accused of even the smallest parenting mistakes. The novel's absurdist premise puts a spotlight on the impossible pressures placed on modern parents. Trigger warning: this novel will feel quite unfair and infuriating. Read it to feel a sense of relief that this isn't the world we live in.
Chouette comments on the choice every parent must face when it comes to letting a child be who they are or forcing them to be who you want. In this contemporary fable, a woman named Tiny gives birth to an owl-baby who is born small and broken-winged. While Tiny vows to raise her little one to be her authentic self, her husband is obsessed with "curing" her. It's up to Tiny to nurture her owl-baby in the best way she knows how.
Ausubel's A Guide to Being Born is a beautiful collection of stories that explore’s life’s transitions through the lens of parenthood (think: Gestation, Birth, etc.). Ausubel explores love, loss, and change using a language of magical realism that's wholly her own, tinged with optimism and heart. The collection begins with Birthm and old souls traveling on a cosmic sea, and ends on a section entitled Love: the precursor to life, and everything that matters.
This offbeat collection of short stories blends fairy tale-like surrealism and poetic precision to explore identity, motherhood, marriage, loss, and family bonds. Wild Milk twists reality in a very subtle way. Mark's magical realism is efficient and surprising: one minute, the narrator is picking her child up from preschool, and the next she's in a nightmarish fever dream--a rendering that's perhaps truer to the experience of early motherhood than most "normal" accounts. Mark's stories are evocative and sometimes unsettling, inviting readers to embrace discomfort and look below the surface.
Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth
An interesting read for anyone at a point in life of reconciling childhood trauma with the anxiety of deciding to have their own child, Motherthing introduces us to a woman named Abby who happily moves in with her mother-in-law Laura in the hopes of finally having a mother figure in her life after a traumatic childhood. Sadly, Abby learns that her mother-in-law doesn't believe she'll ever be good enough for her son. When Laura takes her own life after years of hysterical threats, Abby and her husband are haunted and tortured by her ghost while trying to start their own family. With symbolism that doesn't take much to deconstruct, Motherthing highlights the struggle to overcome wounds from our parents in our own parenthood journeys.
Inglenook Lit is an online literary magazine for magic enthusiasts and enchantment seekers
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