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Mothwoman
From Bram Stoker Award-winning author Nicole Cushing comes a novel about family, grief, aliens, mental illness, trauma, sexism, the Mothman legend, Covid, and the encroachment of unreality into American political life. Mothwoman combines the style and playful dark satire of A Sick Gray Laugh with the grimness and relatively quick pace of Mr. Suicide.
- GenresHorror
246 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 11, 2022
1 person is currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Nicole Cushing
41 books346 followersNicole Cushing is the Bram Stoker Award® winning author of Mr. Suicide and a two-time nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award.
Various reviewers have described her work as “brutal”, “cerebral”, “transgressive”, "wickedly funny", “taboo”, “groundbreaking” and “mind-bending”.
Rue Morgue magazine included Nicole in its list of 13 Wicked Women to Watch, praising her as an “an intense and uncompromising literary voice”. She has also garnered praise from Jack Ketchum, Thomas Ligotti, and Poppy Z. Brite (aka, Billy Martin).
Her second novel, A Sick Gray Laugh (2019) was named to LitReactor’s Best Horror Novels of the Last Decade list and the Locus Recommended Reading List. She has recently completed and polished her third novel.
She lives in Indiana.
Various reviewers have described her work as “brutal”, “cerebral”, “transgressive”, "wickedly funny", “taboo”, “groundbreaking” and “mind-bending”.
Rue Morgue magazine included Nicole in its list of 13 Wicked Women to Watch, praising her as an “an intense and uncompromising literary voice”. She has also garnered praise from Jack Ketchum, Thomas Ligotti, and Poppy Z. Brite (aka, Billy Martin).
Her second novel, A Sick Gray Laugh (2019) was named to LitReactor’s Best Horror Novels of the Last Decade list and the Locus Recommended Reading List. She has recently completed and polished her third novel.
She lives in Indiana.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 5, 2022
Cushing is hands-down one of my favorite authors; however, this one didn't resonate with me in the way her other works do. Overall, it was an entertaining and thought-provoking read, but felt a bit meandering and the ending fell a little flat in my opinion. It felt a tad bit forced. That being said, the story was still thought-provoking and textured. Graphic, funny, intelligent, and a little quirky.
September 9, 2025
Nicole Cushing’s books emerge from the bloated nothingness between language and malignant reality; they’re freakish creations spawned from the gray, cloying chaos that separates daydreams from nightmares.
The Mothwoman is a deeply personal account of a middle-aged, depressed woman—initially called Nancy—and her strained relationship with her family. During COVID, Nancy’s mother calls her to help care for her invalid father, and Nancy feels obligated to make the road trip from Indiana to her birthplace in Maryland. The difficult relationship between Nancy and her mother has an autobiographical flavor and echoes the author’s earlier short story, Non Evidens, in which a mother gives birth to an invisible child, dresses her in a plastic costume, and gradually becomes more attached to the expensive, state-of-the-art costume than to the child beneath it. Similarly, Nancy feels that her mother never truly saw her for who she was, and she has always felt alienated from her family and surroundings.
The trip to Maryland should feel like a journey home—yet Nancy doesn’t feel at home there. If her birthplace isn’t home, then where does she belong? And what exactly is she? Feeling estranged from her earthly parents, Nancy concludes she must be an alien. And indeed, on her trip, she’s abducted by aliens, and her real identity emerges: Nid Cold. What follows is a dizzying, phantasmagorical sequence of events told in a mostly comedic voice—now and then strangled by anger, dread, and heart-wrenching nostalgia.
Cushing paints a grotesque universe dotted with sparks of poetic beauty. Suffering from depression and anhedonia, Nancy confesses:
“Time insists on moving forward. I’ve never been a fan of motion of any sort. I’ve always been quite happy lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, caught in a spiderweb of stillness.”
In a philosophical mood, she reflects that not all madness implies transcendence:
“The nasty funk of a homeless guy is a far cry from incense.”
And elsewhere:
“The ancients thought there were four basic elements which served as the building blocks of the universe: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. This belief was, of course, mistaken. The four elements are actually Annoyance, Tragedy, Abnormality, and Brokenness. Emptiness is Brokenness taken to the extreme. Grandeur is Abnormality taken to the extreme. Ridiculousness is an especially perverse alloy of Annoyance and Abnormality. And so on, and so on, for every last thing in the universe.”
From a philosophical point of view, Cushing’s prose subverts Joseph Campbell’s concept of the “hero’s journey” and the intellectual tradition it stems from, from Mircea Eliade to Carl Gustav Jung. During her psychotrip, the protagonist sees a black helicopter with a rainbow encircling its blades and imagines Joseph Campbell lecturing on the symbolism of the vision:
“The rainbow encircles. And what is a circle but the visual representation of a cycle? Struggle. Achievement. Decline. Fall. And then, once again, the renewed struggle to rise up again. Youth. Adulthood. Old age. Death. And then, once again, Rebirth.”
The anti-hero replies harshly:
“I imagine telling Campbell that I feel ambivalent, at best, about my original birth (by which I mean my human birth). I imagine letting him know that this rebirth business, this ‘Nid Cold’ business, this removal-from-my-costume business, isn’t any better.”
The rainbow turns out to be a kind of weapon, and Nid Cold tries to escape, although, as Mothwoman, her beak is weighed down by an iron muzzle:
“But I must try. I’m a heroine, and Joseph Campbell insists I take a journey. Giving up just won’t do. So I force myself up onto my feet.”
The rainbow, however, has a peculiar nature: it reeks and sounds like rushing water, which doesn’t fit neatly into Campbell’s analysis. As imaginary Campbell launches into a mythological interpretation of “water,” Nid Cold stops him in his tracks:
“But Joseph Campbell is dead, and I haven’t yet run into his ghost. If I ever do, I’ll read him the riot act. I’ll tell him life is not as simple as he says it is. Sometimes a stinking rainbow that sounds like rushing water is just a stinking rainbow that sounds like rushing water. Sometimes, symbolism is forced.”
For Nicole Cushing, stories don’t have grandiose meaning—they’re just things we say to pass the time, to keep ourselves entertained, to keep from drowning in the absurd. Her protagonist does not progress through her struggles and does not become wiser or happier. She remains in the same emotional trap as at the beginning of the book: an equivocal existence stretched between an ambiguous birth and a fuzzy death; an unreliable witness of cognitive entropy; a Sisyphean figure wrapped up in semantic games.
These remarks only scratch the surface of a rich, brilliant, brutally honest book that delivers a devastating emotional punch—one that will haunt the reader long after the book is closed. Nicole Cushing rules! Next stop: The Plastic Priest.
The Mothwoman is a deeply personal account of a middle-aged, depressed woman—initially called Nancy—and her strained relationship with her family. During COVID, Nancy’s mother calls her to help care for her invalid father, and Nancy feels obligated to make the road trip from Indiana to her birthplace in Maryland. The difficult relationship between Nancy and her mother has an autobiographical flavor and echoes the author’s earlier short story, Non Evidens, in which a mother gives birth to an invisible child, dresses her in a plastic costume, and gradually becomes more attached to the expensive, state-of-the-art costume than to the child beneath it. Similarly, Nancy feels that her mother never truly saw her for who she was, and she has always felt alienated from her family and surroundings.
The trip to Maryland should feel like a journey home—yet Nancy doesn’t feel at home there. If her birthplace isn’t home, then where does she belong? And what exactly is she? Feeling estranged from her earthly parents, Nancy concludes she must be an alien. And indeed, on her trip, she’s abducted by aliens, and her real identity emerges: Nid Cold. What follows is a dizzying, phantasmagorical sequence of events told in a mostly comedic voice—now and then strangled by anger, dread, and heart-wrenching nostalgia.
Cushing paints a grotesque universe dotted with sparks of poetic beauty. Suffering from depression and anhedonia, Nancy confesses:
“Time insists on moving forward. I’ve never been a fan of motion of any sort. I’ve always been quite happy lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, caught in a spiderweb of stillness.”
In a philosophical mood, she reflects that not all madness implies transcendence:
“The nasty funk of a homeless guy is a far cry from incense.”
And elsewhere:
“The ancients thought there were four basic elements which served as the building blocks of the universe: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. This belief was, of course, mistaken. The four elements are actually Annoyance, Tragedy, Abnormality, and Brokenness. Emptiness is Brokenness taken to the extreme. Grandeur is Abnormality taken to the extreme. Ridiculousness is an especially perverse alloy of Annoyance and Abnormality. And so on, and so on, for every last thing in the universe.”
From a philosophical point of view, Cushing’s prose subverts Joseph Campbell’s concept of the “hero’s journey” and the intellectual tradition it stems from, from Mircea Eliade to Carl Gustav Jung. During her psychotrip, the protagonist sees a black helicopter with a rainbow encircling its blades and imagines Joseph Campbell lecturing on the symbolism of the vision:
“The rainbow encircles. And what is a circle but the visual representation of a cycle? Struggle. Achievement. Decline. Fall. And then, once again, the renewed struggle to rise up again. Youth. Adulthood. Old age. Death. And then, once again, Rebirth.”
The anti-hero replies harshly:
“I imagine telling Campbell that I feel ambivalent, at best, about my original birth (by which I mean my human birth). I imagine letting him know that this rebirth business, this ‘Nid Cold’ business, this removal-from-my-costume business, isn’t any better.”
The rainbow turns out to be a kind of weapon, and Nid Cold tries to escape, although, as Mothwoman, her beak is weighed down by an iron muzzle:
“But I must try. I’m a heroine, and Joseph Campbell insists I take a journey. Giving up just won’t do. So I force myself up onto my feet.”
The rainbow, however, has a peculiar nature: it reeks and sounds like rushing water, which doesn’t fit neatly into Campbell’s analysis. As imaginary Campbell launches into a mythological interpretation of “water,” Nid Cold stops him in his tracks:
“But Joseph Campbell is dead, and I haven’t yet run into his ghost. If I ever do, I’ll read him the riot act. I’ll tell him life is not as simple as he says it is. Sometimes a stinking rainbow that sounds like rushing water is just a stinking rainbow that sounds like rushing water. Sometimes, symbolism is forced.”
For Nicole Cushing, stories don’t have grandiose meaning—they’re just things we say to pass the time, to keep ourselves entertained, to keep from drowning in the absurd. Her protagonist does not progress through her struggles and does not become wiser or happier. She remains in the same emotional trap as at the beginning of the book: an equivocal existence stretched between an ambiguous birth and a fuzzy death; an unreliable witness of cognitive entropy; a Sisyphean figure wrapped up in semantic games.
These remarks only scratch the surface of a rich, brilliant, brutally honest book that delivers a devastating emotional punch—one that will haunt the reader long after the book is closed. Nicole Cushing rules! Next stop: The Plastic Priest.
December 17, 2023
The cover of this book has a quote proclaiming that it is "a sharp, quirky adventure that overlaps alien abduction, horror, conspiracy, cryptids and existential dread in a way that only Nicole Cushing could manage to pull off." Except she absolutely couldn't. I don't think ANYONE could.
This book is truly nothing. It's been a while since I read something which I understood so little of. It somehow managed to attempt to explore so many interesting ideas, without reaching anywhere with any of them. Everything is very surface level, and it feels like it's said just to be said rather than actually treated with care. It's not absurd in an interesting way, but simply just absurd.
The only, and I mean ONLY, redeeming quality of this book is how it lets the disgusting and traumatic be disgusting without romanticising it at all. Sadly felt like a breath of fresh air.
This book is truly nothing. It's been a while since I read something which I understood so little of. It somehow managed to attempt to explore so many interesting ideas, without reaching anywhere with any of them. Everything is very surface level, and it feels like it's said just to be said rather than actually treated with care. It's not absurd in an interesting way, but simply just absurd.
The only, and I mean ONLY, redeeming quality of this book is how it lets the disgusting and traumatic be disgusting without romanticising it at all. Sadly felt like a breath of fresh air.
October 9, 2022
Complexity amongst the oddities and absurdities in the metamorphosis, entropy and satire with first person narration and interior-monologue, writing that flows well and mesmerised in this unique journey of mothwomam, one who faces a paradox of choices for survival amidst existential dread and in a world gone absurd not too different from the reality of the last two years we be living in the real world except for the alien and moth entities, in a great weird tale of which readers of strange and weird worlds that appreciate fluid storytelling would love her prose a joy to read constructed with a great style and choice of words with the humorous and weird.
You like aliens, loved Star Trek, watched a pbs series The Power of Myth and Mothman prophecies whilst slightly dreamy and have interest in levitation, telepathy, and time travel, you have attend conventions, you love moths and live under a president called Tr**p and possess a weird imagination then you just may just be able to write this story.
I won’t be reading mothman prophecies the book, the film was adequate enough, and this mothwoman.
Bye for now have a Mothman convention to attend.
Review with excerpts at my webpage more2read.com
You like aliens, loved Star Trek, watched a pbs series The Power of Myth and Mothman prophecies whilst slightly dreamy and have interest in levitation, telepathy, and time travel, you have attend conventions, you love moths and live under a president called Tr**p and possess a weird imagination then you just may just be able to write this story.
I won’t be reading mothman prophecies the book, the film was adequate enough, and this mothwoman.
Bye for now have a Mothman convention to attend.
Review with excerpts at my webpage more2read.com
December 11, 2022
I maintain that the real magnetism of stories is to witness the author stitch themselves into their narrative. It is our job as the reader to watch this grotesque display, quell our discomfort, and then by the end, hopefully find some recognition. Even in horror fiction, where the author can display the worst of themselves, I always have this little yearning in my stomach to say: me too. This moment of recognition is what makes us swallow these bitter pills.
Nicole Cushing is one of those authors that has pulled those words from me time and time again. Her novel Mr. Suicide was a transgressive, Ligottian romp that demonstrated just how dark (and absurd) weird horror can get. Her novel A Sick, Gray Laugh was a bizarro autobiography complete with a compelling alternate history—and perhaps her most ambitious work to date. Her new novel, Mothwoman (Word Horde), is a further refinement of all the elements we’ve come to love in Cushing’s work—featuring high absurdity, strangeness, and the humanizing touch of a confessional.
To talk too much about Mothwoman’s plot is to give too much away. I will say this though: it is fucking weird. In the best way. Cushing weaves cryptids into the American political landscape, alongside Covid and outlandish conspiracy theories. What struck me most upon reading it, was how immediate and reactive it was. This is a novel about the last few years, encapsulating the Weirdening of our everyday reality. It wouldn’t be out of bounds, I think, to call Mothwoman a sublimated coping mechanism.
Despite all of the reality Cushing is dealing with through the novel though, I think it’s also fair to say that this is her lightest, breeziest book yet. The narrative flies past the reader, going full bore into gonzo insanity at a steady gallop. It’s also Cushing’s funniest book to date, to the point that I would consider it as much of an absurdist farce as I would consider it a horror story. In many ways, Mothwoman shares DNA with Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five—if not in exact subject matter, but in the way that it weaves comedic premises and dark autobiography to create an elevated genre fiction spectacle.
Mothwoman’s playful premise revolves around conspiracy theories, hidden identities, and a hilarious cryptid convention. In many ways, its structure takes our main character (who I can’t help but see as a stand-in for Cushing herself—in the best way) on a tour of the absurdities of the modern world. In the same way that the character is along for the ride, so are we. There’s a sense of funhouse curiosity, of the stops and starts of theme park rides, as we get to gaze in wonder at the stupidity of the unfortunately real world we live in. Cushing builds Mothwoman out of barely-exaggerated echoes of the present, arranged in dioramas for our amusement and terror.
But despite its comic nature, there is a bleak streak in Mothwoman (albeit less so compared to other works by Cushing), where trauma rears its head amidst insanity, and the whiff of dour, inevitable outcomes are a sobering reminder that while this is all funny, it’s also downright horrific. Mothwoman reads like a book written as a simultaneous escape, rationalization, and condemnation of a strange, cruel world.
This is all to say that it’s excellent. Mothwoman is a timely novel from one of our best and brightest. It’s a novel of futility, despair, madness, and it comes as a short, compelling read that never lets up on the gas. In a world that often seems like it’s falling apart, Mothwoman is an acknowledgement that sometimes, all you can do is laugh.
(Originally published a Cosmic Horror Monthly)
Nicole Cushing is one of those authors that has pulled those words from me time and time again. Her novel Mr. Suicide was a transgressive, Ligottian romp that demonstrated just how dark (and absurd) weird horror can get. Her novel A Sick, Gray Laugh was a bizarro autobiography complete with a compelling alternate history—and perhaps her most ambitious work to date. Her new novel, Mothwoman (Word Horde), is a further refinement of all the elements we’ve come to love in Cushing’s work—featuring high absurdity, strangeness, and the humanizing touch of a confessional.
To talk too much about Mothwoman’s plot is to give too much away. I will say this though: it is fucking weird. In the best way. Cushing weaves cryptids into the American political landscape, alongside Covid and outlandish conspiracy theories. What struck me most upon reading it, was how immediate and reactive it was. This is a novel about the last few years, encapsulating the Weirdening of our everyday reality. It wouldn’t be out of bounds, I think, to call Mothwoman a sublimated coping mechanism.
Despite all of the reality Cushing is dealing with through the novel though, I think it’s also fair to say that this is her lightest, breeziest book yet. The narrative flies past the reader, going full bore into gonzo insanity at a steady gallop. It’s also Cushing’s funniest book to date, to the point that I would consider it as much of an absurdist farce as I would consider it a horror story. In many ways, Mothwoman shares DNA with Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five—if not in exact subject matter, but in the way that it weaves comedic premises and dark autobiography to create an elevated genre fiction spectacle.
Mothwoman’s playful premise revolves around conspiracy theories, hidden identities, and a hilarious cryptid convention. In many ways, its structure takes our main character (who I can’t help but see as a stand-in for Cushing herself—in the best way) on a tour of the absurdities of the modern world. In the same way that the character is along for the ride, so are we. There’s a sense of funhouse curiosity, of the stops and starts of theme park rides, as we get to gaze in wonder at the stupidity of the unfortunately real world we live in. Cushing builds Mothwoman out of barely-exaggerated echoes of the present, arranged in dioramas for our amusement and terror.
But despite its comic nature, there is a bleak streak in Mothwoman (albeit less so compared to other works by Cushing), where trauma rears its head amidst insanity, and the whiff of dour, inevitable outcomes are a sobering reminder that while this is all funny, it’s also downright horrific. Mothwoman reads like a book written as a simultaneous escape, rationalization, and condemnation of a strange, cruel world.
This is all to say that it’s excellent. Mothwoman is a timely novel from one of our best and brightest. It’s a novel of futility, despair, madness, and it comes as a short, compelling read that never lets up on the gas. In a world that often seems like it’s falling apart, Mothwoman is an acknowledgement that sometimes, all you can do is laugh.
(Originally published a Cosmic Horror Monthly)
April 18, 2023
This book was very, very strange. And in at least most ways, I do mean that as a compliment.
The story walks a line of absurdity and surrealism, and at its best is either unsettling or bizarrely funny. The main character is unusual, with trails of thoughts that range from philosophically thought-provoking and troubling, to aimless and nearly ridiculous. The narration often felt excessive and too meandering, and sometimes the story devolved away from absurdity into something that felt more outright silly. The satire also ranged from decidedly poignant to feeling far too on-the-nose to do anything other than make me end up shaking my head. In these ways, the book actually felt too long, despite it being quite short.
In spite of the issues I had with it, I can clearly recognize the gifts of Nicole Cushing’s writing. I feel I could love her work if I find the right book, which I intend to do. She has a unique voice and some truly interesting, dark philosophy behind her writing, and prose that struck me as nuanced and profound. At its best, MOTHWOMAN had a few moments of true, unsettling poetry inside its strange, compelling absurdity. This was almost enough to salvage it from its murky shapelessness, silliness, and *heavy sigh* of an ending.
The story walks a line of absurdity and surrealism, and at its best is either unsettling or bizarrely funny. The main character is unusual, with trails of thoughts that range from philosophically thought-provoking and troubling, to aimless and nearly ridiculous. The narration often felt excessive and too meandering, and sometimes the story devolved away from absurdity into something that felt more outright silly. The satire also ranged from decidedly poignant to feeling far too on-the-nose to do anything other than make me end up shaking my head. In these ways, the book actually felt too long, despite it being quite short.
In spite of the issues I had with it, I can clearly recognize the gifts of Nicole Cushing’s writing. I feel I could love her work if I find the right book, which I intend to do. She has a unique voice and some truly interesting, dark philosophy behind her writing, and prose that struck me as nuanced and profound. At its best, MOTHWOMAN had a few moments of true, unsettling poetry inside its strange, compelling absurdity. This was almost enough to salvage it from its murky shapelessness, silliness, and *heavy sigh* of an ending.
December 22, 2022
This was funny and grim, very weird, and timely. I loved how Cushing presented the mind of this character. I picked it up not knowing anything about it except that some friends had enjoyed it, and I couldn't put it down until it was finished.
April 5, 2024
I read the first two thirds of this book in a couple of days. I was so into it but in the third act I got kind of bored with the stream of consciousness style and felt like not a lot was actually happening. DNF.
April 14, 2024
Bonkers newest book from Nicole Cushing! Take conspiracy theories, cryptids, alien abduction, COVID, and some tongue in cheek refs to some former political figures. Add a bit of horror, some comedy, and a bit of grossness, and that's the general recipe for the cocktail of this book.
November 12, 2022
Empty, ridiculous, and grandiose. I liked it.
December 30, 2022
As weird as promised! I've taken some weird road trips along the same route but missed these particular, peculiar, detours. Simultaneously familiar and alien.
June 25, 2023
As relentlessly intelligent and whimsical as Mothwoman is, it couldn’t keep my attention. The constant informality and wit of the prose was just a little exhausting, for me.
Read
July 28, 2023An unofficial prequel to Beau is Afraid
October 2, 2023
I’ve been a fairly big fan of Nicole Cushing’s work for a while, but this one just didn’t work for me at all.
February 5, 2025
So funny but struggles with pacing.
January 16, 2023
Another fantastic and Weird tale from Nicole Cushing. It is a story of cryptids, aliens, identity, politics, and so-many-other-things-I-am-still-digesting. As with most of Cushing's works, at a certain point I let go and absorb her prose, her worlds, her thoughts. I have a feeling that this is another one of her works which will linger in the back of my brain and pop out at times as I ponder it. If you are lover of Weird fiction, pick this up. Great stuff.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews