Reader Jaye sent us this Rec League, searching for characters with a particular background. Here’s the request:
I’d love to call on the Rec League for books that feature protagonists who had terrible childhoods and/or dysfunctional families with one of the main characters being the child of a narcissist. I love seeing characters who had it tough growing up find their HEA!
Examples of what hits my sweet spot would be Lisa Kleypas’ Smooth Talking Stranger (heroine raised by narcissist mother), Nora Roberts’ Vision in White. I enjoy both contemporary and historical romances.
Now romance has no shortage of unhealthy upbringings, but can we find narcissist parents specifically for Jaye?
I’m about to reread La Nora’s “The Witness”. The entire plot stems from an act of rebellion against the most amazingly self absorbed mother I think I’ve ever read about.
More Georgette Heyer’s that veer towards the Narcissist: “The Nonesuch” has a N in the making. “Sprig Muslin” features a heroine who is bullied by her whole family and still comes through and “The Unknown Ajax” sees the self absorbed grandfather forced to face the error of his ways.
[Vocab: ACoN = adult child of narcissist]
Abusers deny or minimise and redefine their actions out of sight. But when an ACoN tentatively introduces herself or himself to an online community with a story about ‘minor abuse’ and asks ‘too minor?’, more often than not, one and all, including victims of severe forms of abuse, will say ‘you are SO one of us!’.
Often, it will extend to ‘Come to think of it, my abuser did that too! And I never even realised how twisted it was, because they did SO many different/uglier things. Thanks for the insight.’
ACoN communities have “no linking” rules to ward off stalking by narcissist parents (virtual and real life).
I will link instead to the Issendai’s compendium:
http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/themes-abuse-is-rare.html
One day I’d like to see the OPPOSITE Rec League, heroes and heroines who have wonderful parents. Kind of like Lord Peter Wimsey’s mother, what a gem she was!
We don’t meet him directly in the book, but the heroine in A Crown of Bitter Orange by Laura Florand describes her dad as a narcissist, and his behavior had a really big impact on her personality, fears, and life choices.
I think that the narcissist parent has real trouble disentangling their own identity from their child’s. The child is an extension of them, reflecting all their own ambitions or bitter disappointments, and any challenge to the parent’s own scripted reality must be strictly controlled.
I’m thinking of Poppy and her controlling mother from Eloisa James”An Affair to Remember’ – her mother comments frequently that Poppy has inherited her beauty but must fulfill her mother’s failed ambitions. She can never step out of line or let her mother down in any way – maintaining public face is especially important – and her mother projects her own failed marriage onto Poppy’s, almost destroying that too.
Not romance, per se, but I just read ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ and there’s a well-written narcissistic parent. I really enjoyed it.
The Bennetts in Pride and Prejudice aren’t Narcissists! They live according to rules of the country, society, and class-level. They want their daughters to marry, because as women they can’t inherit the house and they’re looking for good men who can support (financially) and take care of their daughters when the parents are dead and maybe look after the other girls. (In a contemporary, I would be offended that women would have to marry for security.)
I also don’t think Valancy’s mother in The Blue Castle is a narcissist. Control freak? yes OCD? yes Narcissist? no
Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood the mother is an abusive alcoholic, which differs from narcissism.
The Sugar Queen is a toxic situation, but I’m not sure the mother is narcissist.
I also read most of the Bridal Quartet series. At least one of those heriones seemed like she could be a narcissist (Bed of Roses).
Still I’m not sure I could differentiate between someone who is controlling, someone is a jerk and someone who is a narcissist. Some of my favorite authors and books are on this list and while all of these books contain bad parents (mostly mothers why do so many people hate women?), I’m not sure they’re narcissists. It’s a technical term, and this post is asking us to guess which is difficult for me.
It is clearly stated in “Pride and Prejudice” that Mr and Mrs Bennett could have saved up enough to provide for their daughters, (iirc, with the marriage settlement already having provided for Mrs Bennett during her probable widowhood). It’s even near-quoted in the 1990s hit TV series (the Colin Firth takes a dip in the pond one), when it was narration NOT dialogue in the book.
Financial abuse is a thing. It is NO excuse for compounding the betrayal by pushing for a forced marriage. Which only Mrs Bennett does. So, it would be possible to upgrade Mr Bennett to enabler status. YMMV.
Jane Austen’s mother monopolized the lounging chair while Jane had to rest on two chairs pushed together when weakened by the mysterious disease that eventually killed her. I reckon Jane Austen would know how to write characters that ACoNs recognise as narcissists.
There is a LOT of overlap between the effects on kids of the better-known forms of family dysfunction (alcoholism; child sexual abuse; violence) and those of narcissism. And sadly, a twofer with narcissistic parenting is not that uncommon.
Ref: “The Narcissistic Family” by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert Pressman
+There’s a Karina Bliss rec I would tag on here… if it weren’t a massive spoiler.
All Summer Long by Susan Mallery immediately popped to mind, also mentioned by Ruth. Charlie’s mother is a most definitely a narcissistic parent. I’ve seen a few in action and it is often not pretty.
I think Glitter Baby by Susan Elizabeth Phillips might fit the bill.
Stephanie Bond “Seeking Single Male” is the first one that comes to mind. There are several others of hers, too. Normally the mindless narc mother behavior just to twist the knife in a heart wrenching plot twist.
“The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë. Narcissist alcoholic father farmed the heroine out to other relatives in the backstory. The Mr Wrong husband is a narcissist and a terrible partner and parent because of it. …There are narcissists among their social circle, including a skin-crawling sexual harasser. …But also characters who reform, turning away from the narcissist path. And characters who escape.
(Warning. The romantic arc is not that hot. The hero doesn’t shake off the influence of toxic masculinity fast enough, and even reviewers at the time described him as rather brutish. …Also, the last volume drags.)
@cleo, I agree with you on Glitter Baby. I think Fancy Pants might also comes close.
The problem with narcissists is that they are wonderful to the outside world, but horrible to their families. So it’s tough to write a character like that unless you’ve experienced it. It isn’t always the outside clingy stuff, either, sometimes it’s horribly controlling behavior, using guilt and shame to control, turning people against each other, ruining relationships for the child, undermining their self esteem, and making them feel like they’re generally not worth anything without the narcissist.
@faellie @zyva: Holy smoke. I never would have thought of Mrs. Bennet as a narcissist, but, wow. WOW does her behavior fit key identifying patterns. I’m going to have to go sit and stare at a wall thinking about this one.
@Amanda: “just formatting content?” As if! Like that’s not a huge and crucial job!
But yes, if you have a HaBO, you can always email it to me at sarah AT smartbitchestrashybooks etc or use the contact form here:
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/contact/requests/
HaBO is the second dropdown option.
I honestly think that many of the most narcissistic mothers I’ve seen in romance novels were supposed to be depicted positively or at least sympathetically, for reasons related to the ones mentioned by @I Am Kate.
Unfortunately I can’t think of examples. (They make me so furious that I tend to block them out.)
I read a bottom of the barrel Inspirational once where the junior minister ‘hero’ browbeat his girlfriend into forgiving her mother. Her Batterer mother. (That’s the opposite of a HABO btw, SB Sarah. Long may it languish in obscurity. It’s been decades, hoping it’s been recycled down to the last copy by now.)
Narcissists aren’t “mirror mirror on the wall”, it’s more like, “I’m too busy to remember to pick my kid up after the school function so she’s just gonna stand in the cold for an extra 30 minutes because I’m more important than she is.”
There’s really no redeeming that type of person. And they don’t make sense, because there isn’t constant cruelty, it’s a bunch of little things that added up together are horrible. There are a lot of people who are estranged and no-contact with their parents because of the behavior and because their parents only want to bring them down. If there are authors out there who can really write this, then I’m sorry, because it means they lived it and that’s just sad.
Ugh…this is a sore spot for me. There is no redeeming a true Narcissist because they don’t realize what they’re doing. They lack understanding and refuse to take responsibilities for their actions. Emotionally, they’re about 7 years old, stuck in the me-me-me phase.
@I Am Kate. There’s a fantastic description of all the little cuts adding up during the ‘Aunt Mary Maria’ fiasco in Anne of Ingleside. “You can endure one mosquito, Miss Dew…but think of millions of them!”
Isn’t punctuation fun?
Here’s what the original request says:
So where does the “and/or” go?
(a) protagonists who had { terrible childhoods and/or dysfunctional families } with one of the main characters being the child of a narcissist
(b) { protagonists who had terrible childhoods } and/or { dysfunctional families with one of the main characters being the child of a narcissist }
Jaye, is “child of a narcissist” an essential part of what you’re looking for, or is it just one of several options? It may sound like a trivial question, but this thread is in danger of getting derailed by one-or-the-other assumptions.
The rephrasing added by SBTB is clear:
“Now romance has no shortage of unhealthy upbringings, but can we find narcissist parents specifically for Jaye?”
@SB Sarah: Specifically, The Blue Castle. I don’t think the mother and aunt are narcissistic. I think their behavior is a combination of conservative Protestant ideas about humility, fear of small town gossip and fear of offending the relatives they depend on to survive. In other words, it’s not “all about them” it’s all about the extended family and community.
@Ruth. Narcissistic traits are fostered and passed down in families. A whole clan perspective is part of the appeal in The Blue Castle.
Similarly in Mansfield Park, a smorgasboard of varying degrees of narcissistic family dynamics.
@Zyva I think that stretches the definition of narcissism beyond the point of usefulness. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.
@Ruth. Kind of beside the point. I didn’t ask anyone to take my word for it, I linked to the review precisely so readers could form their own first impressions. That’s my duty done, and it’s not the same as putting opposing ideas head to head like it’s impossible to test them. ACoNs swap notes on which texts represent their experience often. It’s testable.
What about the mother in Crusie’s “Bet Me”? She’s hypercritical and points out flaws and has totally screwed up her kid’s body image.
Lisa Kleypas had a few – particularly the heroine’s mother in ‘Smooth-talking stranger’. Can’t remember the details, but I think she was named as a narcissistic (and exhibited behavior that backed that diagnosis up!)
@I am Kate I think Min’s mother is screwed up and unhealthy (and has screwed up Di and Min in profound ways) but ultimately her completely screwed up approach to life is about her daughters and not just herself (she backs her youngest daughter to the hilt during the wedding disaster for example).
Cal’s mother and father on the other hand are all about themselves and view their children and grandchildren as extensions of their own lives.
@Annamal That’s a typical narcissist, though. One child is the “golden child” and the other is a “scapegoat”. The narc heavily favors one of the children, and tries to put them forward as a perfect example of herself and how she wants to be to outsiders. The other receives a much higher amount of criticism and can be shamed in public as the bad child. The mother, wanting to appear to be perfect, heaps all the blame for the scapegoat’s behavior and any family problems on the scapegoat. Because it’s all about how they love their children in public but in private, the children are tortured with the mother’s highly critical attitudes and mood swings. I think Min’s mother in Bet Me is a great example.
Cal’s parents are just self-absorbed and hyper critical. It’s not common to have narcs married to narcs–their egos just don’t allow it. Instead there’s a Narc and an enabler. So, the mother might be critical and convince the father to carry out heavy punishments with her over the top reactions to the child’s minor transgressions. But, it’s emotional abuse nonetheless.
I think Charlotte Louise Dolan’s Fallen Angel might fit. Verity’s parents are beyond the pale.
@HopefulPuffin, I was thinking of Fallen Angel too. The heroine’s family are very selfish and self-absorbed, but I’m not sure if that qualifies as narcissist.
narcissistic family
Definition from Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman;Robert M. Pressman. ‘The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment’
As we began to track common traits shared by the parent systems of the survivors, we identified a pattern of interaction that we labeled the narcissistic family Regardless of the presence or absence of identifiable abuse, we found one pervasive trait present in all of these families: the needs of the parent system took precedence over the needs of the children
. We have found that in the narcissistic family, the needs of the children are not only secondary to those of the parent(s), but are often seriously problematic for the latter. If one is to track the narcissistic family on any of the well-known developmental scales (such as Maslow’s or Erikson’s), one sees that the most fundamental needs of the child, those of trust and safety, are not met.’ Furthermore, the responsibility of needs fulfillment shifts from the parent to the child
IIn this family situation, the child must be reactive to the needs of the parent, rather than the converse. In fact, the narcissistic family is consumed with dealing with the emotional needs of the parent system.
TLDR short quote: “it was a narcissistic family: the clear expectation was that the children would meet the parents’ emotional needs, and that the children would not call upon their parents for emotional support” [on a case study]
@SB Sarah: Re Pride and Prejudice. Thank you for my share of the compliment. I think (?). I don’t really like to harsh anyone’s warm fuzzies about books (esp seeing as non-ACoNs don’t get the “YES! I feel so heard !” rush, which compensates). I would have way preferred to shine that light on something you don’t like, eg “Who’s the Daddy?” by Judy Christenberry. It’s a textbook narcissistic family, and that’s the source of all the crazysauce.
(Note: No reflection on Christenberry’s parents. I think I know some non-ACoNs who write narcissists credibly. Like Leigh Michaels. My guess is she encountered some peaches of parents working in uni admin, since she writes, in detail, a student aid manager in “Dating Games”. Christenberry also worked in the teaching system before turning to writing.
…And anyone can read Judith Wallerstein, Eleanor Payson, the Pressmans, etc. Well, anyone who has the time and energy to spare to ugly-cry their heart out.)
Full credit to @faellie for the call. I cut my English classics teeth on P&P, so I mostly just had emotions about it. I hadn’t critically analysed it through a narcissist psychology lens before.
I hadn’t looked at many of these books through the “narcissist lens,” either. It’s illuminating how it can change the interpretation of behavior patterns in familiar characters when you identify the pattern!
I do want to say, however, that this is clearly a sensitive (very!) topic and one that can poke at very deeply held feelings and reactions. Interpretation of characters always vary quite widely — please keep that in mind. Much like no one is the last word on a book’s quality, no one interpretation is the correct interpretation. (UNLESS it is the narcissist, for they are always right!) (KIDDING) (Except not.)
@SB Sarah. I do rethink and edit down before I post A LOT. Otherwise I’m either brutally blunt OR going softly, softly and wondering whether I’m JADE-ing (justify, argue, defend, explain) and giving others more of my energy than is equitable. …But you know, always room for improvement.
With a second wind, I do make allowances or take into account mitigating factors.
Eg…
If the gender politics in other historicals is similar to the Mr Bennett versus Mrs Bennett stand-off re Mr Collins’ proposal to Elizabeth, that’s only fair in that individual case, it’s not fair in a “representative sample” way, because male failures (financial abuse) or pressure would have been the usual driving force pushing girls into unsuitable matches. (Eg – NOT REC – Evadne’s sexist par excellence father in “The Heavenly Twins” by Sarah Grand. Or Sir Thomas Bertram putting pressure on Fanny Price – not as ugly, because he thinks better of it. At least a bit.)
But you don’t have the comic reversal, saving the day, in the non-romance, where the female guardian thinks she’s performing her enforcer role to perfection (that would be Aunt/Mrs Norris arranging a different unsuitable match) and the more powerful male guardian refuses (or changes his mind) to pressure the heroine.
It’s ONE pattern of behavior. If you tried applying other patterns of behaivor you might find they fit just as well if not better to the same characters.
“Coercive control”, not incompatible with budding or full-blown narcissism but a more precise label, fits some male villains. Coercive controlling behaviour is often not learnt from family of origin dynamics, but from toxic masculinity in wider culture.
We’re talking mostly exes or first husbands of widow heroines, though, not fathers. Courtney Milan had a villain like that who both encountered a heroine, used controlling tactics on his wife, and was a father to characters, in the Brothers Sinister series.
I’d call him an overt narcissist as well, but coercive control gives a better idea of his actions.
I would suggest Mad about the Earl by Christina Brooke which I really enjoyed.
One that I thought was not so great but I recently read and fits the bill so I thought I should throw it out there in case it works for someone else is A Good Debutante’s Guide to Ruin by Sophie Jordan.
The hero’s parents in Loretta Chase’s “Last Night’s Scandal” are completely self-centered and dismissive of anything he does that doesn’t benefit them.
Thanks, everyone! I am so looking forward to reading these recs. 🙂