This compelling and unique collection of critical and creative work assesses for the first time cultural, literary, legal and historical representations and narratives about mothers who kill and filicide. The idea of a mother killing her child to many presents the greatest taboo, and the most disturbing and distressing aspect of maternal experience. In Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved, escaped slave mother Sethe addresses her daughter Beloved whom she murdered out of desperation, in order to avoid her returning to a life of slavery and sexual abuse. Sethe reflects, “I’ll explain to her, even though I don’t have to. Why I did it. How if I hadn’t killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her. When I explain it she’ll understand.” This book goes beyond Morrison’s widely known literary portrayal, in order to investigate a range of other, less known but no less challenging, examinations of maternal filicide. Have mothers who kill inevitably been portrayed as monsters in cultural representations? Or are there certain contexts that may urge us to reevaluate maternal behavior? And how might we counter the misogynist narratives surrounding maternal filicide which have governed literary and historical accounts and affected legal discourses? This wide-ranging and innovative volume examines the complex issues of infanticide and mothers who kill from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, in order to counter the misogynist cultural narratives that underpin prevailing stereotypes of mothers. The book includes creative work, essays on crime fiction, literature from across a range of historical periods, multicultural and Global South perspectives, legal and historical accounts, and more. Making an invaluable contribution to motherhood studies and gender criticism, this book offers a rich insight into current and cutting-edge research into this most troubling area of maternal representation.

Charlotte Beyer is Senior Lecturer in English Studies at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. She has published widely on crime fiction and contemporary literature. She is the editor of Teaching Crime Fiction (Palgrave, 2018), and Co-Editor of Mothers Without Their Children (Demeter Press, 2019) Janet MacLennan, born on an island in the Atlantic, has made her way to an island of quite different climes–from Canada to the Caribbean to make her home as a professor of communication, narrative researcher, and Travellin’ Mama to a travellin’ boy. Dorsía Smith Silva is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras in the Faculty of General Studies. She is the co-editor of Caribbean without Borders: Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture (2008), among others. In addition, her poetry has appeared in Adanna, POUI, and Nourish. Marjorie Tesser is the author of two poetry chapbooks THE IMPORTANT THING IS (Firewheel Award Winner) and The Magic Feather. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in Drunken Boat, Akashic Press’ Thursdaze, Earth’s Daughter, The Saturday Evening Post, and others. She is the editor in chief of Mom Egg Review.

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Josephine L. Savarese is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, St. Thomas University, in New Brunswick. Josephine is a regular contributor to Demeter Press releases. While the topic of infanticide has challenging aspects, Josephine also finds the topic, explored in the wide ranging chapters, fascinating.

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