A shuddering encounter

23. You’ll Like My Mother – Naomi A. Hintze

A pregnant girl in a tan tent dress on a bus travels to Always, Ohio to confront the mother in law who didn’t write her back after the death of her husband in Vietnam. What she finds is reminiscient of the 1998 Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle, Hush; give or take some blood poisoning in a cabin by the beach (if only we could all find solid, stable boyfriends by isolating ourselves in beach cabins and stabbing ourselves with fish hooks after being kicked out of college), a lumpy freshwater pearl, a feeble minded sister (oh, 1969, and your use of the words “feeble minded” and “monster” to describe people with developmental disorders), and some LSD. And Red the bus driver, filling in for his father. Melodrama played a big part in this story. It was a “A fine chiller diller,” according to the Columbus Dispatch, they would say that.

Ozymandias reacts to the reviews on the back of the book – “Throat-clutching suspense!” Don’t worry, Ozy, that’s just for 1969 audiences.