Onyx reviews: Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 01/08/2023

Megan Abbott isn't known for including supernatural elements in her novels, but it's hard not to expect something unworldly to happen in Beware the Woman. "Rebecca meets Rosemary's Baby" would make a good elevator pitch for this novel and, while the former book has no overtly supernatural elements, the latter definitely does.

Jacy and Jed, married nearly two years, have a baby on the way. Jacy, thirty-two and thirteen weeks pregnant, teaches elementary school and Jed makes neon signs, both as a commercial endeavor and as a form of creative art. Jacy has only met Jed's father, Doctor Ash, once (they were married at City Hall, so there was no formal wedding), but now they're on a road trip to visit him in the far northern reaches of Michigan's upper peninsula. To get there they have to endure bone-rattling potholes. Once they arrive they find themselves in the middle of the woods, where there are wild creatures, ravenous insects, and virtually no connection to the outside world other than a landline.

The former vacation home, as lavish as a hunting lodge, comes equipped with a caretaker, Mrs. Brandt, the book's Mrs. Danvers. The overbearing woman lives in a cottage on the grounds and insinuates herself into everything that goes on in Doctor Ash's home. Her relationship with Jed's father is unclear, but Jed has known her all his life. He even confesses to having a crush on her as a child. Jed's mother died when he was a baby, although her presence lingers in the story, like the original Mrs. de Winter.

It doesn't take long for the amicable welcome Jacy received to turn into a sense of Gothic dread. Although their accommodations are spacious, she feels a distinct lack of privacy. Jed, naturally, has a long history with this place, including old summer drinking buddies and exes. Jacy encourages him to go out and have fun while she relaxes in the lodge and she gets no argument from him. Over the course of the next couple of days, though, she senses a change in Jed's personality. Is it just a matter of being back in a place suffused with memories, not all of them pleasant, or is something else happening? Jacy's mother has warned her more than once that the people we marry are strangers.

A medical emergency changes everything. Jacy has a pregnancy-related bleeding incident, necessitating a visit to the local doctor. Suddenly, men (the doctor, her father-in-law, her husband) are making decisions about how she needs to behave without asking for her input. Personal information is shared without her approval. Everyone starts treating her like she's fragile, with no agency of her own, as if she were a child who needs to be managed rather than an adult.

Misunderstandings and misinterpretations become immutable fact. Because the novel is told from Jacy's first-person perspective, readers are trapped inside her thoughts as her palpable frustration and anger build like steam in a compressor. It's unsettling, little like being inside someone else's fever dream. No matter what she says or how she says it, she can't make people listen. What's worse, it's a holiday weekend, so she has difficulty consulting with her obstetrician back home and the only way out is in their rental car over those ghastly, bumpy roads. Everyone wants her to stay put a few more days; Jacy wants to leave immediately, but she can't. It almost seems as if there's something important about Jacy's baby that only the men know about.

Beware the Woman has a lot to say about misogyny and male dominance of women, both in the context of marriage and in life in general. Men have all the power (although one character argues that men behave as they do because it is women who hold the power). Jacy's husband and father-in-law undergo major shifts in personality when she attempts to challenge their edicts, as if she is attacking them personally.

The hostile environment is symbolized by a lone cougar believed to be stalking the area. Accounts vary as to who has actually seen the creature and whether it is male or female, but everyone—that is, the men—believes it poses a grave danger. Several times, Doctor Ash makes a joke about seeing baby mountain lions. "That was your head start," he says, as if pointing out how dangerous mothers can be. A number of incidents are attributed to the creature, although it increasingly seems as if they are manufactured to keep Jacy indoors and off her feet.

True to the Gothic tradition, long-held secrets bubble to the surface in a tumultuous climactic scene. Rather than explore the implications of these events, though, Abbott chooses to end the novel abruptly, which may leave some readers feeling like much has been unresolved. Maybe that's the point.