This title was published on April 4, 2024 by Zsa Zsa Publishing.

In the wake of her son’s death, Debbie Enever’s world as a mother is wrenched away and a new identity of “midow” takes hold. A term coined by Enever herself, a midow is a mother who has lost, or widowed, her only child. Midowed: A Mother’s Grief explores the year after Dan’s death as she navigates organ donations, funerals, holding onto memories, and finding her future.

Segmented into three parts, the novel starts on a Saturday in late May 2018 following the immediate aftermath of Dan’s accident. Faced with the terrible fact that her son has died, Enever keeps us with her at every step—the trips between hospitals, the impossible decisions, and the horror of seeing her fifteen-year-old son lying unconscious in a hospital bed. The days following his accident are documented in journal entries that intimately navigate her year of loss. We also learn about the process of organ donation while Dan’s friends and family find other ways to honor his memory.

Threaded throughout the present narrative, Enever weaves in Dan’s childhood. This choice allows readers to experience his favorite holidays; how they find their beloved dog, Maggie; and how a mother and son bond over football. And it’s Dan’s fierce love of football that propels him towards athletic ambitions. In his teenage years, he joins a gym and starts making his own high-protein meal plans. From these moments, there’s no doubt Dan’s life was full of passion. The contrast of these timelines fits together, in part, because Dan’s voice is a constant in both. While we get vivid and energetic moments in his upbringing, we also continue to hear him after his death through Enever’s personification of him. Utilizing italics, Enever allows for dialogue, opinions, and even comedic relief through Dan’s voice.

Reading this as a mid-thirties woman without children, I found myself welling up at the café as I ferociously paged through those early, dark days. Enever’s prose hones in on emotions in a way that makes them accessible to all readers. She showcases the detachment of survival that competes with the shutting down of grief.

“I’m in limbo, paused between the past and the future. Dan is in limbo, drifting between life and death. I feel like there are two of me; the puppet version of me standing, looking like a real person, and other me locked inside, with eyes closed, breath held, trying to hold onto one moment forever so nothing ever moves forward again.”

Here is the novel’s universal conflict—the perceived need to be constantly moving forward as grief grips onto us, temporarily holding us in periods of stasis. While I can’t know the loss of a child, the memoir speaks to other areas of grief I’ve experienced—having lost a loved one with no preamble and no warning. Enever’s vulnerability generates a sense of solidarity and being seen. In the year after Dan’s death, Enever deftly encapsulates the strange quality of time and solitude that follows loss.

“Minutes drag, and hours pass in a blink. I don’t want company anyway. Messages of love and support are still coming through, ping ping ping. Everyone else’s grief is hard to bear. I can’t tie up in my mind all that’s happened in the last few days. This is shock and it hums in my ears.”

Bereaved parents and those experiencing grief may relate to this sense of prostration in the wake of loss. And while I personally related to Enever’s raw openness, the novel makes no claim to be the answer to grief. In her memoir, she recognizes that friends and family manifested their grief in unique ways and she highlights the various ways to mourn. Despite their differences, however, those close to her all find small comforts in celebrating Dan’s life. That’s what this novel is at its core. A small comfort, a celebration, and a resource for fellow bereaved parents.

While there’s no denying the heartbreak in this memoir, there is also hope. Dan and Enever shared many conversations about organ donation during his life because of friends who needed, and successfully received, transplants. So, when the time comes to decide, Enever knows she isn’t deciding for Dan, but rather, ensuring his resolution to donate is fulfilled. She expresses this to the doctors to which Dan’s voice replies, Dead right, Mum. When Enever is allowed to enter his room prior to the procedure, she reminisces on his athletic life. Namely she reflects that instead of preparing for a bronze medal Dan’s keeping his organs healthy and preparing to pass on life. For that Enever expresses, “I’m so proud.”

There’s no mistaking this is Enever’s journey, but Dan is a main character, too. During her first year of grief, each chapter is labeled by the days since the accident. In contrast, when we experience Dan’s life, the chapter headings highlight the people, places, and events they experienced together. It’s these past chapters where Dan’s voice brings comic relief and comfort. In this way, the novel’s structure allows the reader to dwell in the darkest moments before being pulled into the bright joy of Dan’s childhood. Through the memoir’s braided narrative, we gain an understanding of his character—how curious he was as a child, how he loved to drink milk even as a teen, his obsession with United (affectionately considered the wrong football team according to Enever), and how caring he was. “He put in the love, and it came back multiplied” and maybe that’s what we should take from this novel, a message of love, of memory, of hope.

Of how Dan’s light shines on.

Spoiler Alert—The following review contains plot details about Monstrilio.

What was the origin of the idea behind Monstrilio? Is there a particular experience or event that influenced your decision to write this book?

There isn’t a specific event, but rather a question we all have, particularly queer people: Am I going to be loved no matter what? I wanted to see how far love could be stretched. I wondered if it could break. I decided to explore a family’s love if they had to love something monstrous.

How did you manage to strike a balance between infusing elements of horror and the supernatural with themes of tragedy and grief in your novel?

I think horror is the potential of tragedy. What if the worst thing that could happen happens? How do we react? Do we survive? Horror deals a lot with grief—grief as cause and consequence. Grief is so powerful; death so alarming for us mortals that horror finds fertile ground here, as does the supernatural, attempting to explain things that perhaps we humans will never understand.

Monstrilio also explores themes of queerness, not just for young M but for almost every character in the novel. How important was it for you to write a story so representative of queer identities?

Extremely important. I had two goals: one, to have queer characters exist in a world without prejudice, acceptance, or the need for explanation; two, to tell a story in a queer way, challenging what we think traditional narrative should be.

Using multiple narrators isn’t a conventional storytelling method, especially in the context of horror. What was your intent behind featuring four distinct narrators in Monstrilio? How did their voices evolve during the writing process?

I wanted to capture a family’s experience of loving each other—how it changes. Does it vanish? Strengthen? Shape-shift? It was crucial that I get each member’s individual perspectives, each with their unique take on Monstrilio, while still having their own goals and dreams. It was interesting to me how the individual informs the collective and vice versa.

In addition to Monstrilio, you write a lot of short stories. How did writing a novel differ from your experiences in crafting shorter fiction? What challenges and creative opportunities did you encounter in making the transition from short stories to a full-length novel?

Short stories, by virtue of their shortness, have the agility to shift and experiment before they take their final shape. You can write several versions of the same short story without (usually) spending decades on it. Novels cannot shape-shift as effectively. I learned commitment while writing my novel. I couldn’t write a whole new novel every time I got anxious and wanted to scrap the whole thing! I was forced to seek the beauty and awesomeness in what I already had, and trust that even if it was only a paragraph, a sentence, or a funny phrase, it would carry me through.

Why did you feel it was important to separate the identities of Santiago and Monstrilio from M while keeping him connected through shared memories? Was it always your intention for Monstrilio to evolve into M or did this decision come about as you drafted and edited the book?

A lot (MOST) of the book evolved through drafts and edits. But this one thing, the decision to have Monstrilio evolve into M, I always had in mind. I didn’t want the book to simply be a long metaphor for grief. I wanted the metaphor to fight back and say, “I’m not a metaphor. I breathe, talk, and eat,” and see what happened. I wanted the book’s initial conceit to evolve, just like Monstrilio turns into M, hopefully leaving the reader with a more layered and nuanced (or at least more interesting) story.

Monstrilio has received acclaim for its successful blend of horror with elements like folklore and family drama. What tips would you offer to aspiring authors interested in experimenting with the blending of multiple genres in their writing?

Do it! Genres are not set in stone. Play. Create. Art should experiment, question, challenge. Take a trope you love and twist it in a new way, maybe pile others onto it. The more you play around, the better you’ll be at the game.

Are there any books and/or authors that have been fundamental in crafting your own voice as a writer?

So many. Every book I read leaves a little crumb in me. At any given time, I’ll have a few hovering around me that I can’t stop thinking about (although if you ask me in a month, these may have changed):

• Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez
• Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
• After the Sun by Jonas Eika
• Uranians by Theodore McCombs
• El baile y el incendio by Daniel Saldaña París

The process of getting a book published can often feel more challenging than the writing itself. Could you share your experience with the publishing process and offer some advice to emerging authors who are either just starting or currently navigating this stage?

It is challenging! I’m extremely fortunate to have the amazing Jenni Ferrari-Adler as my agent. She’s been with me since the first drafts of the novel, helping me through the revision process, the publishing process, and everything that comes before, during, and after it’s bought. As harrowing as the process is (you don’t know if your book will be bought!), my advice is to surround yourself with people you trust and who are knowledgeable in the process. Ask a lot of questions. Also, understand that this process will be unique to each writer.