"Nightbitch" and Dual Sensibility
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Rachel Yoder's "Nightbitch" is about a mother who turns into a dog. That's not a secret—it's in the marketing copy. But there are some mild spoilers ahead. At first, it's not obvious if the transformation is physical or metaphorical, actual or perhaps some sort of delusion. It's not obvious to the reader or to Nightbitch herself (the mother, the dog, and the POV character).
I'd like to examine the way sensibility is deployed to create a gradual and wondrous metamorphosis that the reader can experience right alongside the character.
At the point I'm about to quote, the mother has noticed new hair growth and thinks her teeth seem extra pointy. She's also found something that seems a bit like a tail. But she's not sure what's happening—if she's imagining things or if there could be a medical explanation.
Meanwhile, she's also navigating library story time, a place where she doesn't fit in—doesn't want to fit in—and has some snarky private nicknames for the mothers who do. But look at what happens when the lead mother (Big Blonde) approaches.
"Oh, hiiiiii!" the Big Blonde crooned as she approached. The mother thought for a moment this might be a true apparition, for the Big Blonde was so perfect, her lines so cleanly drawn. She brought with her, as some women are magically able to, a symphonic olfactory experience, even while still half a room away, which delighted the mother so intensely she felt a slight stirring at the base of her back—"A wag!?" she wondered in horror—and, meanwhile, forgot momentarily how much she deplored this woman, this Big Blonde, now a mobile sniff party: a touch of dryer-sheet freshness from her no doubt newly laundered white shorts and cashmere-soft tank, something earthy yet also extraordinarily refined, as though patchouli had been manufactured in a French parfumerie and then dabbed lightly on the Big Blonde's wrists and behind the ears, and then, beneath each smell, a sweet pink candy scent of strawberry, like a memory from the mother's own childhood, a big chunk of bubble gum too big for her mouth, the syrup dripping down her chin. A charm bracelet on the Big Blonde's wrist jingled, and then the mother was back from her sensorial reverie, there at the train table, to offer an inadvertent grimace and her own tiny wave.
Notice that 145-word sentence, which includes two em dashes, a hyphen, 16 commas, and—somehow—all three forms of end punctuation: a period, a question mark, and an exclamation point! (And look at me trying—and failing—to keep up.) It's an abundant sentence, one that cascades sensation upon sensation. Breaking it up would create a different experience, one of distinct sensory images instead of this fascinating layering of smells and the imagery that Yoder carefully associates with each. It's a delight, but it's also overpowering—just like it must be for a woman whose nose has suddenly amped up in sensitivity.
Twenty-four pages later, the mother admits that her increased sense of smell might be a canine development. Of course, I've already guessed this, but the fact that she doesn't mention it in the moment of smelling Big Blonde makes it feel more authentic to me. The mother is inside her senses, rather than speculating about them, though she certainly frets later. That feels to me the most doglike of anything.
And yet it's not just dog here. The mother's human sensibility is intensely present. "Big Blonde," though it certainly evokes dog, is the nickname she gave the woman before any of this started. And it must be the human side of the mother that bemoans how Big Blonde's clothes smell "freshly laundered"—after all, the mother is struggling to keep up with her own chores and hygiene. It's also much more human than dog to notice the particular refinements of Big Blonde's toilette: that cashmere and the French parfumerie.
What's particularly interesting is that we seem to be in both human and dog sensibility at the same time. The long sentence helps to create the sense of simultaneity and means she can both experience a potential wag and be horrified at it. It means she can delight in the approach of a woman that she actually loathes. (Even though she says she's forgotten, the mention of it makes sure the reader does not.) The grammatical structure both reminds the reader of what is true to the mother's human self and sets aside that analytical aspect to revel in the current sensations.
Human and dog perspectives layer in another fun way with the strawberry smell. The overpowering scent—and the delight in it—are very much canine in sensibility. But the connection to the past, to bubblegum and memories—that must be the human mother's.
The strawberry associations are doing other story work, too. The smell is going to come back, and so it's important that the reader remembers it. Thus, it matters that the scent is made distinct and vibrant, even as it's layered with so many other strong sensations, which risk burying it. I love that "strawberry" triggers multiple senses. There is not only scent, but shape, color, flavor, and even texture that spring to mind at the word.
The linked memory also adds weight as it lets us linger in this smell through time, evoking nostalgia as well as the present sensory experience. Inside the memory, there is even more sensory pleasure: "a big chunk of bubble gum too big for her mouth, the syrup dripping down her chin." (But it's messy pleasure. Doglike? Perhaps.)
When we finally leave the reverie of delight and revulsion, it's a jingle that shakes us from it, which is both jarring and perfectly appropriate.
In all of these ways, the dual sensibility—of human and dog—feels like the middle step of a magical transformation. We don't need to be told what this mother is like, or precisely how far along she is on her journey to dog. Instead, we experience her perceptions of the world around her and feel the way she is strangely—and gloriously and grotesquely—both at the same time.