Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Failing Successfully -- 1. The Whore and Her Mother: Exploring Matrophobia in Nelly Arcan's Putain -- 2. Horrible Mothers in Mémère's Kitchen: Queer Identity in New England Franco-America -- 3. "I'm Not the Virgin Mary": Rebellious Motherhood in Grégoire Chabot's "A Life Lost" -- 4. Permissive Parenting: The Awful American Mother in Nancy Huston's Lignes de faille -- 5. Lucie Joubert's Ironic Rejection of Motherhood in L'envers du landau -- 6. Voicing Shame: From Fiction to Confession in the Work of Marguerite Andersen -- 7. The Transgressive Mother in Nancy Huston's Bad Girl: Classes de littérature -- 8. Forgiving the Horrible Mother: Children's Needs and Women's Desires in Twenty-First-Century Québécois Film -- 9. Politics and Motherhood in Xavier Dolan's J'ai tué ma mère and Mommy -- Contributors -- Index.