The Need by Helen Phillips (light spoilers)

Submitted by EwokNuggets t3_10ak716 in books

Im a fan of science fiction and Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter is one of my favorite books. Someone recommended that if I enjoyed Dark Matter i should read The Need by Helen Phillips.

Has anyone read this? I just finished it and my God wtf did I just read?

The constant >!references to breast milk, nursing, nipples, and lactating!< were on every other freaking page! Like, it came across as some weirdly bizarre fetish the author had and she just had to HAMMER that freaking point home. Add to that >!the constant whining of the main characters kids and the weird parallel reality version of yourself coming to steal your kids and bang your husband!<.

The whole damn thing felt like some bizarre paranoid fever dream about breast milk and postnatal separation anxiety. The sci-fi angle was the only thing that kept me going but hot damn this book was a mess.

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Own_Art1279 t1_j44xyb8 wrote

I actually loved this book. It's a 4/5 star read for me and I've recommended it to many people. In my opinion, the mention of lactating communicated the physical reality of motherhood if a person breastfeeds. It symbolized the main character's connection to her kids and the fact that motherhood was a bodily experience for her. It's not just a role she performs. It's mental, emotional, and physical. The reality of breastfeeding is that it's messy and the body does things on instinct and without conscious decision making. I think that Phillips' main character experiences motherhood similary--messy, instinctual, and not always a conscious choice but rather a primal reaction. This is also true of her double.

I also have a different interpretation of her double's motivations and what happened in that relationship. However, I'm not sure how to hide spoilers so I'm not going to go into that.

I can understand how the book could seem too surrealist for some readers. I think the book Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder plays with some similar themes of motherhood in an even more surrealist and less sci-fi way. I like Helen Phillips take on a doppelganger story and the way she uses that framework to explore modern motherhood.

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EwokNuggets OP t1_j44yjp6 wrote

I totally get the breastfeeding as a symbol of a mothers connection and I’d be fine with that, but literally it’s on every other page. A few times through the book? Sure. By the end I felt like her breast milk was a character itself.

Maybe the book fell flat for me being a guy with no kids? I’m pretty open to whatever concept an author wants to throw my way but this just wasn’t handle well at all in my opinion. Maybe i just need to mull it over some more?

Also i honestly don’t quite understand the ending. Like at all.

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Own_Art1279 t1_j4521e4 wrote

I also have a quick thought about the breastfeeding thing. I think we're so accustomed to thinking of breasts as sexual that it does come across as a weird sexual fetish. But, I think her point is the opposite of that. We're so uncomfortable as a society with breasts being used for breastfeeding that breastfeeding gets confused as something sexual. That's why women wear coverups as they try to nurse their babies. God forbid they expose their boob to the public because we see that as indecent. Philips is making the point that the breast is for breastfeeding. It's debatable about how successful she was in making this point. Personally, I read it as intending to shock her audience sometimes in order to communicate that the reality of breastfeeding isn't always easy, clean, and certainly not sexy. I think women are also conflicted about their breasts as they experience the early years of motherhood. A mom still wants to be sexy and attractive but her body also has other roles to fulfill.

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PurpleDreamer28 t1_j47y7j4 wrote

I adored the book, so I’m curious about your interpretation! Could you message it to me when you can?

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PurpleDreamer28 t1_j453um3 wrote

I LOVED this book. I thought I would just start it before going to bed, but I ended up reading the whole thing and not sleeping until the early morning hours.

I worked in a bookstore at the time, so I recommended it to all my coworkers. And one of them had a really interesting observation. Sometimes when mothers are overwhelmed/stressed, they might express, >!"I wish there was two of me." And this book takes that literally. !<I don't know if that was the author's intention, but it's a neat parallel.

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EwokNuggets OP t1_j47opj3 wrote

hmmm, interesting take. Any chance you can explain the ending to me? I genuinely don't get it....

>!The ending just seems to be that Molly and Moll laid atop each other and...melded? It was all super unclear. !<

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