Lucy Lane Clifford was a well-regarded novelist and playwright in her day but her oddball children's book, The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise, is probably her most enduring legacy and even that's not well-known.
It's a pity. As "The New Mother" demonstrates, Clifford had a real talent for inflicting inevitable fates on naughty children. If you like awful, undeserved punishments, this one's a treat.
There's a lot online about how this story inspired Neil Gaiman's Coraline and The Other Mother. If we can discuss Gaiman's work and not the violence he's inflicted on women for a moment (allegedly, I guess) then I'd like to put paid to that idea. The New Mother, with her glass eyes and wooden tail, is a distant figure of menace. It's the Village Girl, a veritable False Knight that the children meet on the road, who's the villain here.
Our music this week is "The Raven's Lullaby" by Vivek Abishek (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=YRWAit0WLt8&t=30s). My uncle Willy Longori's "Nachtmerrie Waltz" also made its second appearance on the show, providing the discordant music of the peardrum.
Happy Mother's Day, all y'all! Be nice to your mom. You never know what she might do to you if you're not!
#horror #mothersday #thenewmother #podcast
