Nightbitch and Jen

Nightbitch and Jen is the story of an unlikely alliance that becomes the most consequential friendship in the novel. When Nightbitch first sees Jen at the library, she does not even know her name; she only registers the woman as the Big Blonde, the Ur-mommy, perfected and monumental, presiding over her blonde, blabbering twins in coordinated jumpers embroidered with deer and owls, their silky tresses tied in pigtails with pink velvet bows, each child's name—Celeste and Aubergine—embroidered on the butt of her yellow ruffled diaper cover. Nightbitch watches this tableau with a mixture of awe and horror, noting that Jen has named one of her children eggplant, but French, and does not even care, not even a moment of shame for the embarrassingly vegetal name. The two women could hardly seem more different: Jen is the happy mommy who has fully submerged herself in the mommy current, while Nightbitch actively resists making friends in a mom context and objects to the clapping and cooing of the library room. Yet this first sighting plants a seed, and the relationship that grows from it will eventually carry Nightbitch out of her isolation and into the public eye.