Thank you Macmillan Audio, for the ALC and St. Martin’s Press, #partner for the advanced e-copy of The Mother Next Door in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio
Published: February 4, 2025
Summary:
A groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that investigates Munchausen by Proxy from the host and creator of the award-winning true crime podcast Nobody Should Believe Me.
No bond is more sacred than that between a mother and child. And no one is more sympathetic than a mother whose child faces a life-threatening illness. But what if the mother is the cause of the illness? What if the sympathy is the point?
Munchausen by proxy (MBP) has fascinated and horrified both professionals and the general public since this disturbing form of child abuse was first identified. But even as the public has been captivated by these tales of abuse and deception, there remains widespread misinformation and confusion about MBP. Are these mothers unfeeling psychopaths, or sick women who need help? And more important, how can we protect the children whose lives are at stake?
The Mother Next Door offers a groundbreaking look at MBP from an unlikely duo: a Seattle novelist whose own family was torn apart by it, and the Texas detective who has worked on more medical child abuse cases than anyone in the nation. Listeners ride along on three high-stakes MPB investigations; through riveting reporting and shocking stories from the family members, friends, and doctors caught in the blast zone of these unthinkable acts, a twisted portrait of motherhood and deceit is revealed.
With help from some of the top MBP experts in the world, Dunlop and Weber uncover the complex maze of psychological, systemic, and cultural issues that compound MBP and offer solutions for how we might find our way out.
My thoughts:
This is one of those books that once I heard about it, I knew I had to read it. It’s a topic that is just so hard to wrap my head around that anytime I hear about it, I want to know more. Munchausen by Proxy (MBP) is a tough subject to read about yet Andrea Dunlop is the perfect person to write about it, having experienced it in her own family and Mike Weber is a detective that worked many cases of medical child abuse. This is a power team that put together a book I could not put down once I started it.
This book takes us through three cases almost from the beginning. We see just how bad it gets for the child, yet the perpetrator (the mother) often makes it so convincing and weaves such a tangled web that many times, their own family doesn’t realize what is really going on.
This book gave such fascinating insights into the legal barriers that family members faced once the MBP is discovered. Even with an overabundance of evidence, it often takes a long time to bring up a case against someone, not to mention all that the child has to endure in the meantime.
If this topic even mildly interests you, if you want to know more about MBP and don’t know where to start or just want a good narrative nonfiction about a compelling topic, then pick this one up. Even though it is nonfiction, it definitely does not read like it.
Audio thoughts:
I love listening to nonfiction on audio and when I saw that Andrea Dunlop was narrating this, I knew I had to listen to it. Her narration was perfect, with her pacing and intonation spot on. I haven’t listened to Andrea’s podcast yet – it’s referred to in the book a few times – but I will definitely be checking it out now!
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