For Mother’s Day, the nation celebrated motherhood with floral bouquets and restaurants full of dutiful children honoring moms. Of course, in fiction, especially mystery writing, the “bad” mother is usually more significant to plot and character development.

Start with Euripides’ Medea, who punishes husband Jason’s betrayal by murdering their children. Examples of other famous bad moms in literature range from Shakespeare’s shallow sensualist Queen Gertrude in Hamlet to Philip Roth’s overbearing Sophie Portnoy in Portnoy’s Complaint, V.C. Andrews’ cruel Corinne Dollanganger in Flowers in the Attic, Stephen King’s fanatic Margaret White in Carrie, William Faulkner’s rejecting Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying, and Jane Austen’s foolish Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice.

Probably the most heinous crime in our culture is a mother’s murder or torture of her own children. But most fictional bad mothers commit emotional crimes rather than physical violence. Their toxic mothering patterns have been helpfully categorized by Peg Streep, author of Mean Mothers: dismissive (ignoring and rejecting), controlling (micromanaging), unavailable (emotional withdrawal or actual abandonment), enmeshed (“stage” moms), combative (hypercritical and competitive), self-involved (superficial narcissists), unreliable (behavioral swings), and role-reversed (dependent moms, such as those with alcoholism or depression). No wonder bad moms are such good fodder for writers!

Even if you see a mother’s failings reflected in fiction’s bad moms, my advice is to cut motherhood some slack this Mother’s Day. Definitely don’t expect mothers to live up to our culture’s myths of the “good” mother, with her instinctive, unconditional and instant mother love! Maternal behavior is not instinctive; human behavior is more complex, individual and cultural than that. Maternal love is not unconditional and without preference; good parenting actually sets boundaries and recognizes differences. And maternal attachment is hardly instant; a mother-child relationship takes time and hard work. Just being a “good enough” mom is an achievement!

For a good article about harmful motherhood myths, see

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/tech-support/201502/mothers-love-myths-misconceptions-and-truths

ABOUT  KATHERINE SHARMA

Katherine Sharma’s family roots are in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. But after her early childhood in Texas, she has moved around the country and lived in seven other states, from Virginia to Hawaii. She currently resides in California with her husband and three children. She has also traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and Asia, and makes regular visits to family in India. After receiving her bachelor’s degree. in economics and her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Katherine worked as a newspaper and magazine writer and editor for more than 15 years. She then shifted into management and marketing roles for firms in industries ranging from outdoor recreation to insurance to direct marketing. Although Katherine still works as a marketing consultant, she is now focused on creative writing.

By Katherine Sharma

Weddings have been on my mind because my daughter is getting married this year. As a result, everywhere I look, everyone seems similarly obsessed. On reality TV, courtship and marriage fuel dramas with “love” as the prize: “The Bachelorette,” “90-Day Fiance,” “Married at First Sight,” “Bridezillas,” “Say Yes to The Dress,” etc. And I’ve noticed a couple of common trends. First of all, extravagant wedding trappings are being promoted at every turn, via magazines, Internet and TV–the huge engagement ring, the island destination venue, the designer gown and the lavish “fairy tale” event.

Based on my experience, many young people are buying the wedding-industry hype, especially brides and grooms who are marrying later and who, as working couples, can afford to celebrate their unions in style. Another ubiquitous trend is to “write your own vows” rather than use traditional rites, putting the personal relationship at the heart of the ceremony. Yet the outward prosperity and romance of a wedding don’t correlate with marital success. Just the opposite. A recent study found that the more a couple spends on their wedding, the higher their rate of divorce compared with the average! Theories include the stress of financial debts incurred and misguided reasons for marrying (wealth and outward appearance). But maybe fairy-tale wedding failures reflect a more basic marriage misconception.

No matter how earnestly lovers pen their own vows or finish the night with fireworks, they are already on the wrong path if they think they are celebrating the start of a long-time love affair. As Joseph Campbell said about marriage across cultures in The Power of Myth: “Marriage is not a love affair….A marriage is a commitment to that which you are. That person is literally your other half. And you and the other are one. A love affair isn’t that. That is a relationship of pleasure, and when it gets to be unpleasurable, it’s off. But marriage is a life commitment, and a life commitment means the prime concern of your life. If marriage is not the prime concern, you are not married.” It’s obviously easier to go into debt for a big party than honor a life commitment for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. For sobering data about the link between wedding expense and divorce, see http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-larger-the-rock-the-rockier-the-marriage-2014-10-15

ABOUT  KATHERINE SHARMA

Katherine Sharma’s family roots are in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. But after her early childhood in Texas, she has moved around the country and lived in seven other states, from Virginia to Hawaii. She currently resides in California with her husband and three children. She has also traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and Asia, and makes regular visits to family in India. After receiving her bachelor’s degree. in economics and her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Katherine worked as a newspaper and magazine writer and editor for more than 15 years. She then shifted into management and marketing roles for firms in industries ranging from outdoor recreation to insurance to direct marketing. Although Katherine still works as a marketing consultant, she is now focused on creative writing.

By Katherine Sharma

As the New Year begins, I’m suffering from a post-holiday mental hangover. One of the blessings, and trials, of the holidays for baby boomers like me is that we reunite with aging parents (if we’re lucky enough to still have living parents). Framed by past holiday memories, the physical and mental deterioration of these folks in their 80s and 90s is disturbing. Our parents, even those in relatively good physical and mental shape, are far from the people of our youth. They are often, by necessity, focused only on self-centered needs and anxieties. They may be preoccupied with the past–from triumphs to trivia–in a way that muddles their present. They may require a caretaker role that is financially, emotionally and physically exhausting.

To make it tougher, needy parents can be resistant, resentful and critical. Certainly, I have heard my friends, seniors themselves, lament the burden of self-absorbed and difficult aging parents. Of course, accusations of selfishness can go both ways. As sons and daughters, even gray-haired ones, we selfishly yearn for the parents who put us first–providing comfort, security and guidance. It’s hard to accept that those parents are gone. And the parents who disappointed and wounded are gone, too; there is no resolution or atonement to be had from these parental ghosts. So how to deal with caring for elderly loved ones? Well, I find laughter is one balm for sorely tried nerves–certainly better than denial, anger or depression. So when my 89-year-old father’s memory pastes bits of past, present and fantasy together to produce amazing fables, or his confused actions create a theater of the absurd, I let myself laugh at the ridiculous results. I laugh at my own bumbles and grumbles in response, too. The comic relief helps keep tears and fears at bay. For an example of humor coupled with honesty in dealing with aging parents, read the recent memoir by Roz Chast, the New York Times cartoonist. A 2014 National Book Award finalist, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? combines text with Chast’s cartoons, family photos and documents to offer both comfort and comedy about this tough subject: http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Talk-about-Something-Pleasant-ebook/dp/B00JA9JE0Y

ABOUT  KATHERINE SHARMA

Katherine Sharma’s family roots are in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. But after her early childhood in Texas, she has moved around the country and lived in seven other states, from Virginia to Hawaii. She currently resides in California with her husband and three children. She has also traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and Asia, and makes regular visits to family in India. After receiving her bachelor’s degree. in economics and her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Katherine worked as a newspaper and magazine writer and editor for more than 15 years. She then shifted into management and marketing roles for firms in industries ranging from outdoor recreation to insurance to direct marketing. Although Katherine still works as a marketing consultant, she is now focused on creative writing.

By Katherine Sharma

Halloween is a perfect time to indulge in mysteries with the extra spice of the supernatural–ghosts, curses, magic, haunted houses and dark forces.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Jonathan Kellerman’s best-selling Alex Delaware mysteries set in Los Angeles, so I’ll start with The Golem of Hollywood by Jonathan Kellerman and his son Jesse. This new contemporary mystery pulls in religious mythology and the supernatural to produce “an extraordinary work of detection, suspense, and supernatural mystery,” per Amazon’s quote of Stephen King. Solving the mystery of a severed head in an abandoned living room takes burned-out LAPD detective (and rabbi’s son) Jacob Lev on an odyssey from Los Angeles to Prague to Oxford and back again. His standard crime-genre investigation is complicated by a mysterious woman and a monstrous being of Jewish mythology (the title’s Golem), built to render justice upon the wicked—including serial killers

If your appetite for the spine-tingling is still not sated, read Mateguas Island, a debut novel by Linda Watkins and winner of the gold medal in Amazon’s 2014 Readers’ Favorite International Book Award Competition for the Supernatural Fiction category. A troubled family comes to a remote island off the coast of Maine, not realizing that their inherited property is steeped in destructive forces. An arcane locked box, a foreboding trail into the woods, a seductive young woman, and tales of a malevolent Native American spirit ratchet up the suspense.

Then, for a modern haunted house story, turn to Christopher Fowler, award-winning author of the Peculiar Crimes Unit series. His original thriller Nyctophobia isolates newly married architect Callie in a grand house in southern Spain, a house split between rooms flooded with light and rooms locked away in darkness and neglect. As Callie begins to research the history of the strange house, her nyctophobia (fear of the dark) is awakened, along with haunting secrets.

But when it comes to seeing ghosts, hysterical, attention-seeking adolescent girls would seem to be most susceptible. So no wonder the girls at a posh Irish boarding school keep seeing the ghost of the boy victim of an unsolved murder in Tana French’s The Secret Place, another installment in the Dublin Murder Squad series. The narrative alternates between flashbacks by clique of schoolgirls and the perspective of a cold-case detective and his partner, who spend a long day and night investigating. As any parent of an adolescent might guess, the private lives of teenage girls, their friendships and betrayals, can be more mysterious and dangerous than the detectives imagine.

If psychic sleuths rather than psyched-out sleuths are your cup of tea, then pick up veteran paranormal mystery writer Kay Hooper’s Haunted, the latest entry in the Bishop Special Crimes Unit series. For more reviews of paranormal mystery releases, check out http://www.iheartreading.net/genres/paranormal-mystery-mystery-and-suspense-3/

ABOUT  KATHERINE SHARMA

Katherine Sharma’s family roots are in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. But after her early childhood in Texas, she has moved around the country and lived in seven other states, from Virginia to Hawaii. She currently resides in California with her husband and three children. She has also traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and Asia, and makes regular visits to family in India. After receiving her bachelor’s degree. in economics and her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Katherine worked as a newspaper and magazine writer and editor for more than 15 years. She then shifted into management and marketing roles for firms in industries ranging from outdoor recreation to insurance to direct marketing. Although Katherine still works as a marketing consultant, she is now focused on creative writing.

By Katherine Sharma

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society,” remarked Mark Twain. Clothes, even if sketchily observed, make the fictional character, too. OK, naked characters rule in erotica, but you still want to know about clothes taken off; a tux or a leather jacket (ball gown or sundress) inspires a different fantasy. Clothing is such a key psychological and social expression that I attire characters carefully; chic, businesslike, sloppy, outmoded, provocative or thuggish, the clothes must fit the personality. I also have to decide if the character’s clothing choice is natural and unstudied, or a conscious effort to present a certain persona. And to make sure clothing is interpreted similarly by most readers, it pays to check research on clothing psychology. Consider one study that found it took only 3 seconds for people shown pictures of men in tailored suits versus off-the-rack suits to make a more favorable judgment of the strangers in tailored clothing. I guess a sophisticated hero needs a tailored suit! Fashion choices can be especially tricky for women characters, especially women in positions of authority. In another study, when people were shown pictures of faceless “senior management” women all dressed in conservative business attire, varying only slightly in terms of skirt length or blouse buttons fastened, they expressed negative opinions of the “provocative” managers (meaning only a slightly shorter skirt or an extra button undone). So, if a heroine is aiming for the executive suite, I don’t risk reader disapproval by dressing her in a tiny skirt and low-cut top, at least not at work. Clothing not only speaks to observers, it speaks to the wearer. A new outfit really can lift its owner’s spirits. And just donning the trappings of competence can improve performance: A recent study found people asked to dress in a doctor’s lab coat to perform a task were more careful and attentive than people performing the same task dressed in a painter’s smock. If you’re interested in clothing psychology, especially for women, check out Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner’s book You Are What You Wear: http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-What-Wear-Clothes/dp/0738215201

ABOUT  KATHERINE SHARMA

Katherine Sharma’s family roots are in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. But after her early childhood in Texas, she has moved around the country and lived in seven other states, from Virginia to Hawaii. She currently resides in California with her husband and three children. She has also traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and Asia, and makes regular visits to family in India. After receiving her bachelor’s degree. in economics and her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan, Katherine worked as a newspaper and magazine writer and editor for more than 15 years. She then shifted into management and marketing roles for firms in industries ranging from outdoor recreation to insurance to direct marketing. Although Katherine still works as a marketing consultant, she is now focused on creative writing.