Loverboy: The Debut Novel of a Singular Mother, Her Dangerous Devotion, and the Darkly Extreme World She Creates

by Victoria Redel

In Victoria Redel's mesmerizing first novel, the question of what happens when a mother loves her child too much is deeply and darkly explored. Left with a small fortune by her parents and the cryptic advice, "it would do to find a passion," Redel's narrator sets out to become a mother--a task she feels she can be adequately passionate about. She conceives her son Paul through a loveless one-night stand, surrounds him with a wonderful, magical world for two--a world filled with books, music, endless games, and bottomless devotion--and calls him pet names like Birdie, Cookie, Puppy, and Loverboy. She wonders, "Has ever a mother loved a child more?" But as life outside their lace curtains begins to beckon the school-age Paul, his mother's efforts to keep him content in their small world become increasingly frantic and ultimately extreme by all definitions.
In this exquisite debut novel, Victoria Redel takes us deep into the mind of a very singular mother, exposing the dangerously whisper-thin line between selfless and selfish motivation that exists in all types of devotion.

Genres: Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Victoria Redel's newest novel is I Am You (September 30, 2025, SJP Lit/Zando), which Melissa Febos calls "A lush, sexy, absorbing novel that brings to life two artists who are inextricably linked in passion and competition."

Redel's work includes four books of poetry, most recently Paradise, and the novel Before Everything. Her short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O, and NOON, among many others. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. She is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and splits her time between Utah and New York City.
Redel is on the graduate and undergraduate faculty of Sarah Lawrence College. She has taught in the Graduate Writing Programs of Columbia University and Vermont College. Redel was the McGee Professor at Davidson College. She has received fellowships from The Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment For The Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center.

Victoria Redel was born in New York. She is a first generation American of Belgian, Rumanian, Egyptian and Russian and Polish descent. She attended Dartmouth College (BA) and Columbia University (MFA).

Reviews

[Krissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loverboy was a five star book for me. It was just beautifully written. This was my first book by Victoria Redel, but I could totally see her background in poetry.

I found this book on a list of books featuring narcissistic parents. Both “ignoring” and “smothering” narcissism were described. The mother smothers her child because her own parents ignored her when she was a child. Two different forms of narcissism that were really just opposite sides of the same coin. This book portrayed the difference between the two as well as how they were connected nicely.

I loved the back and forth between present time and flashbacks to tell the story. Slowly you start to see what’s happening in the mother’s life currently and how she got to that place. Very well done story telling.

I actually rented the movie version of Loverboy, made by nearly the entire family of Kevin Bacon. It was good, but as usual, nowhere near the book’s haunting quality. They kept the flashback story telling angle for telling the mother’s childhood, but they did not use it in the same manor the book did, which was really one of my favorite parts of the book.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish there was a 3 1/2 stars option. This book was well written, even if confusing at times. (the confusion is cleared up at the end, however).

It flips back and forth between a woman in and out of consciousness in a hospital bed to the story of her raising her son.
A fascinating (and slightly horrifying) look at a woman who was basically ignored by her own parents as they were so absorbed by each other.
To make up for this, she goes on a quest to produce her own child-- one whom will have 100% of her affection and attention.
And he does.
And, inevitably, as he grows, he balks at this.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but needless to say, she doesn't handle this inevitable separation well.

A fascinating read on a mother's love that becomes obsessive.

[LaRae Parry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loverboy is written in a fictional poetry kind of way. It is prose and poetry at the same time. The story is riveting. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the writer, her emotions, her descriptions. It's a book the reader really needs to pay attention to because of the flashbacks, etc.

I started re-reading the book the minute I was done. Haunting.

[Chris Desmottes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished this in one day! Very disturbing story of a mother who is obsessed with her child and can't handle the fact that he is growing up and out of her control. Very scary look at obsessive love.

[Gabriella Cutler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a bizarre little book about unconditional and obsessive love between a parent and a child. I won’t say too much so as to not give it away. Most important in this novel is Victoria Redel’s ability to make a book feel like a song in its fluidity and poetry. Beautiful writing for a very interesting story. I will definitely be looking for more of her books!

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very well written, though quite disturbing. It was a bit hard to follow as it is told in mostly flashbacks with very little to explain when a flashback happens.

Basically it's about a woman who didn't get much love from her parents as a child and as a result she overcompensates and gives her son too much love (to the point where she doesn't want him to go to school because she is jealous of his relationship with his teacher and thinks that he will love his teacher more than her).

That ending! Omg! That mother is nuts, lol.

This was very gritty and has an extremely unreliable narrator, but it was very well done. Not normally the kind of book I would gravitate toward, but I enjoyed it.

I would say 3.5 stars.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her portrayal of the truly touching relationship between a single mother and her only child, Victoria Redel beautifully explores the multiple avenues, types, and sensations of love that shape the life of her protagonist���and the lives of all mothers. The heart breaking moments that structure the novel create an emotional tension that extends throughout the piece and draws you in as a reader even further. This piece has helped me to learn the importance of generating emotionally relatable experiences for (at least) the protagonist when writing, which allow readers to experience, rather than simply witness, the changes the character undergoes throughout the piece.

[Christine]

In her portrayal of the truly touching relationship between a single mother and her only child, Victoria Redel beautifully explores the multiple avenues, types, and sensations of love that shape the life of her protagonist—and the lives of all mothers. The heart breaking moments that structure the novel create an emotional tension that extends throughout the piece and draws you in as a reader even further. This piece has helped me to learn the importance of generating emotionally relatable experiences for (at least) the protagonist when writing, which allow readers to experience, rather than simply witness, the changes the character undergoes throughout the piece.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a shudderingly strange tale--not entirely of parenthood, but of obsession and inability to bounce back from a heartbreaking trigger, of fully dysfunctional love being passed on in a new manifestation.

The hospital flash-forwards--and these are truly flashes, small glimpses of a scene we cannot flush out--keep the reader propelled through the narrative. The reasoning for the hospitalization is terrifying and somehow exactly right, exactly where Redel was leading us the entire time without peeling back the revelation too early.

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very sad,
The story also has a movie which is different from the book, but both have same plot and idea.
I've never heard of a mother loving her child so much.
Story was excellent.

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not like it all at first, but I loved it by the end. The structure is very disorienting, but really contributes to getting into the main characters wild and twisted mind. I am now struggling with a paper about it; to what extent does Redel follow "the rules" of fiction.

[Karyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure how I feel about this book. I found it quite confusing to get through. Although most of it makes sense by the end, it still leaves me a bit muddled. A little bit weird for my taste.

[Bin Userkaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite stories ever, in book and movie form. I find everything about it interesting and just enthralling and have since the moment I read the blurb of the movie, which I watched first. I am not sure which I enjoyed better - the movie is the first thing and I love everything about it, but the book is the original story and I love being inside her head and the beautifully haunting way that it's written. Reading the book was quite the experience already having seen the movie and knowing the ending, but it did not take away from it at all. In fact I think it made it better in a way since it was in the mother's point of view and it left me hoping against all odds that even though the stories were bound to be the same - they were - it would end differently. I just love this tragic story so damn much. It's not everyday you read about such an endearing love, born of one's own neglect and the problems it can cause and the author does the best job making you empathize with the narrator who to someone who doesn't understand her story or her is not someone to be empathized with. She is an undoubtedly relatable character no matter who you are and I myself can never help feeling the most for her and wanting the best for her. The psychology of this book is one of my favorite things about it. The way it flashes back and forth telling us the motivations for the mother and the things that influenced them. A beautifully sad story that I love very much.

[Sela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am someone with very strong maternal instincts. I love to care for people and I have always dreamed of having my own child and loving them fiercely. Victoria Redel’s depiction of motherly love is intense and poetic and amazing. She writes in a letter to the readers before the book “I wanted this unnamed woman to be almost like any of us who have loved a child. Almost like any of us, but not, hopefully, exactly like any of us.” This is a perfect way to describe how I connected to this book.
Please just read it! Especially is you have even a single maternal bone in your body! It is beautiful and warm and lovey and intense and sad and SO GOOD! I devoured it in 24 hours and was not only punched in the gut by the ending but just sad in general because this book had to end at all.
I loved every second.

[Mayumi Shimose Poe · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVERBOY (2001) by Victoria Redel: There are some books you return and return to, and LOVERBOY is one of those for me. Sparse yet stunning prose, an utterly original narrative, and the most passionate, swooning, and all-consuming love for a child since LOLITA. I just love this book. It feels as if it spawned in me the possibility of my own fiction, especially my current WIP. It reminds me how writers can all be part of a literary legacy, how books beloved to us are the forebears and progenitors of our own. Because you wrote, Victoria Redel, I can.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really creepy book about how obsessive a mother's love has become for her son. She is unable to let him grow up and not need her so much. Way way too creepy for me. Her love for her son became scary to me and not enjoyable. I also had a hard time with the writing style. Many people say they love her poetry type of prose - me not so much.

[myla ౨ৎ ⋆˚✿˖°₊ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Redel takes motherly love and makes it twisted and ugly and heartbreaking - and I enjoyed every second of it. The mother in this story has one love and prides herself on keeping it that way (literally to her grave). Will keep this book in my personal library to make note on how NOT to parent :)

[Robin Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautifully written. Like buttery poetry, unexpected and original and oh so dark. I'm feeling like an amazingly fantastic mother right now.

[Senne · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Elizabeth Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this both deeply disturbing and thought provoking about the expectations of motherhood.

[Ranger Liu · Rating 3 out of 5]

as always i am a fan of fucked up mother child relationship books and this is refreshing in that it is not the child whomst is insane. otherwise i felt pretty meh about it. interesting to explore this particular dynamic but, it wasn’t anything special for me.

[Erin Matson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you thought “intensive parenting” was weird, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

[Jennifer Zysk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read of a book that is dark, sad and disturbing. A predictable ending (thank goodness). How we get to that ending is written and handled well to see how the story unfolds.

[Hananaki · Rating 2 out of 5]

The prose was too lyrical for my taste.The story let me down to be honest.I don't know why exactly but this book just wasn't for me.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saw the movie and wanted to compare, lots of controversey it seems surrounds.

Emily Stoll only wanted one thing in life: to be a mother. But growing up with her inattentive parents, all she knew was that her exceptional child would have all her attention growing up. What starts as a woman’s obsession to have a child grows to a mothers love to a mothers obsession to keep her child all to herself. A scary story to read for all women and mothers, as Emily’s obsession takes a dangerous course, endangering herself and her child. Made into a film staring Kyra Sedgwick, Loverboy does show you the terror of letting her child grow up and move on from you, not to mention the bond a mother and child can have. Up until the very end when, as a viewer of the film, you see the unforgettable act of Emily.

[Ekim Gökçe ☁️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loverboy wasn't a five star book for me when I first read it. It was the year 2005. Over time, I realised that this book has crept into my mind and my heart, and has left its mark there. Eighteen years have gone by, and there are times when I suddenly remember random parts from this book.
Loverboy wasn't a five star book for me when I first read it, but it definitely rose to an important place in my heart as I grew up.

[Shaindel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was familiar with Redell's poetry but hadn't read her fiction before. Wow. I really enjoyed the voice of the first person narrator and found the character extremely believable. I found it reassuring that a first novel with a first person narrator could be so good, since many editors warn against using the first person.

[Meg Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first person narrative of Loverboy is overall a brilliant, if dark, story filled with many beautifully rendered sentences. Although initially the present tense scenes can feel repetitive and confusing, Redel holds her hand steady until the last pages when she finally shows us why. A haunting exploration into the madness of love.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It was quite interesting to read the book in first person. I did see the movie first, but really enjoyed the book just as much, even though they are a little different. Great story and a super fast read!

[Erika Scheig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw the movie first and really liked the story, but the screenplay followed the book so closely that reading it wasn't very exciting. Still, I gave it 4 stars becuase I think I would have liked it a lot more if I didn't already know the story (and the book ending is better.)