By Sorousheh Salman
Content warning: This story contains mention of eating disorders, mental illness and abuse
Monster by Jowita Bydlowska, a Toronto Metropolitan University journalism instructor, follows Yoveeta, a mother trying to break free from a toxic relationship with her former professor whilst confronting inner demons deeply rooted in her childhood.
“A woman’s life is a life of bleeding,” Bydlowska wrote in the novel, returning to familiar themes of addiction, toxic relationship dynamics and self-destruction that populate her past novels, Guy and Possessed. Bydlowska said she tried to address and express these themes in a responsible way.
“I’m hoping I was considerate and would be able to stand behind everything that I’ve written,” she said.
The main protagonist, Yoveeta, shares a name pronunciation with the author herself, although with a different spelling. Bydlowska said she and her character share the trauma of experiencing culture shock after immigrating to a new country and the experiences of separation and divorce. “Those feelings were very real…where you don’t want to lose your family or your future.”
Despite the similarities between Bydlowska and the character, the author said she tends to avoid writing on heavy topics she has no personal experience with. “There are certain [themes] I’m never going to write about because I have no business or privilege to write them,” she explained.
Bydlowska explores other characters, such as Voytek—Yoveeta’s husband and former professor—and his role in her life. She describes Voytek as an “archetype” of a groomer. The character was inspired by Polish writer Andrzej Zulawski, who dated a woman decades younger than him in 2008.
“When I was young, those sort of relationships were normalized…it didn’t even occur to me that this was grooming until after…people started talking about their experiences. [People say] you can’t groom a 24-year-old but I’m like, absolutely you can,” said Bydlowska.
Throughout the novel, Bydlowska wrote Yoveeta to be “aware of the dynamic” with Voltek by giving the protagonist moments where she considers “trapping” Voltek the way he has trapped her into the relationship, reiterating the symbol of the protagonist’s “monster” coming out in various forms such as revenge and desire to be seen.
As the story progresses, the protagonist’s monster comes out once Yoveeta begins speaking to a man outside her relationship with Voltek. Bydlowska recalled a scene where the man shows Yoveeta her reflection by holding a mirror and she is unable to recognize her own reflection due to the unravelling of her reality caused by Voltek’s gaslighting.
At one point in Monster, Bydlowska writes “I have to look up, and neither of us smiles, we know, we already know, and the air feels different…I raise the glass and take a little sip, my eyes on you the whole time.”
Through the protagonist, Bydlowska showcased the complexities of why people choose to stay with their abusive partners. Yoveeta’s pain is shown through aspects of her life such as her worsening mental health and an eating disorder. In an interview, Bydlowska explained, “Eating disorders and body dysmorphia has always been around … that’s our collective trauma [as women].”
“My father hit me in the face and my mother called me fat,” she wrote in Yoveeta’s perspective. “I starved my body to prove her wrong but I let men violate me to prove him right.”
The symbolism of the monster is left for readers to interpret as throughout the novel, the monster is everywhere.
Bydlowska explained a lot of readers think the husband, Voltek, is the monster, although that is not directly the case when granted insight into the novel’s rough draft.
According to Bydlowska, in the original plot of the novel, Yoveeta was supposed to be more of a “direct monster.” She was supposed to “go on dates and unalive people” before Bydlowska ultimately changed her mind.
“I thought about it but I don’t want [the novel] to be a murder book,” said Bydlowska. She said that to her, Monster is a story of “overcoming.” Even though the book ends in a way that’s more for the plot and for fun, the fact that Yoveeta is able to get out of a toxic relationship after years and years of gaslighting and emotional abuse is a triumph.
In the novel, Bydlowska wrote, “I wish I had the strength on my own but women never leave, not even when their lives are in danger, or especially when their lives are in danger. Because what if he changes?”
Bydlowska concluded that Monster is for those who are or have been in a toxic relationship. “It doesn’t have to be romantic…It can be with parents or a sibling or a friend.”
Bydlowska enjoyed writing the character of Yoveeta because she hadn’t succumbed to being a victim. Even after years of Voltek causing her to question reality to the point that he could say “blue is red,” and she’d believe him, she endured. Bydlowska uses Yoveeta’s monster to wake up from the emotional abuse the character endures throughout the story.
“The fact that [Yoveeta] can come out of the relationship, new boyfriend or not, to me it’s a huge triumph.”
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