Teaching Notes for Wolfbaby
Use in the classroom to discuss: the formation and organization of a story collection; first-person narrative strategies; catalogs as constructive units; confession; stories less-driven by (traditional) plot; academic settings; remembrances; maternal remembrances; maternal resentments; longings; babies; bodies; body parts; bears; (mis)carriages; depictions of pregnancy; almonds and milk; family dynamics; animal personae; dream-logic; doppelgangers; the death drive; earnest explorations of the feminine; gender (roles); oil; baths.
Pairs well with Further Reports, Kelly Marie Wants to Talk to You, and This Was the Decade I Kept Getting Stabbed
Wolfbaby by Susan Holcomb
68 pages.
Perfect bound.
This is not the pastel coming of the stork—this is the wolf. Here, remnants of bloody bible pages, bath tubs of black oil, and biting teeth are the truth of what it means to mother. Who was the woman that you were before your matrescence? What shape did she take after? Winner of the Cupboard Pamphlet’s 2023 Contest, Susan Holcomb’s Wolfbaby relentlessly palpates that gentle give in the gut where the answer is lodged: feel here for evidence of the animal assembly of the zygote, feel here for the leftover imprint of an infant’s pinch, and know yourself changed.
Susan Holcomb holds an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and studied for a PhD in physics at Cornell. Her writing has been published in the Southern Indiana Review, The Boston Globe, Epiphany, The Normal School, New South, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and wild toddler.