Milk and Venom

Milk and Venom peels away the layers of a taboo subject — the dark side of motherhood — as two sisters resort to sex, art, travel, exoticism, and romance, in their struggle to escape from, overcome and sublimate the deep wounds inflicted by their vicious, pathological narcissist mother. 

Imagine you have a mother who is not only incapable of love, but is also humiliating and vicious. What do you, as a child, learn about yourself and life through the mirror of her cruel eyes? What series of gimmicks and devices do you contrive to get you through, to survive, even if only barely, given that you must assume that what your mother gives you is all that life has to offer?

The Milner sisters err in opposite directions. One looks for redemption and healing in romance, travel, relationships, and sex; the other, a semi-recluse, seeks symbolic revenge and healing through her art. We are in 1980. Millicent is divorced and there’s an Italian lover on the scene. Twinkling and undulating, doing her dance of seduction, to the tune of yet another man — who of course keeps going home to his wife — Millicent buys a one-way ticket from Chicago to Italy for herself and her 7-year-old daughter, Alice. And so, in a sixteenth century palazzo in the center of old Rome, Millicent glories in her newfound independence, convinced she has launched into an adventurous new romantic life.

Meanwhile, Millicent’s searingly funny, misanthropic older sister, Geena, stays alone, at the edge of the Pacific, holed up in a rustic Northern Californian cabin, hacking vengeful, revealing, monstrous sculptures out of wood.

In Rome, Millicent meets her elderly neighbor from across the hall. Hermina Szivesen Neumann is in her seventies, an acclaimed, retired anthropologist. Newly widowed, she is in restrained anguish, struggling with the emotional upheaval of knowing that her beloved husband, Sam, is truly gone. What Hermina knows about life and love could well liberate the Millicent and Geena from their psychological prisons – if only she has the strength to confront them and if Millicent and Geena have the courage let her close.

At times raunchy and wicked, and without pulling any punches, Milk and Venom offers an acute and profound anatomy of romance, art, and genuine love. Above all, it is a pitiless examination of a taboo topic: the deep warping wounds that mentally disturbed parents can inflict on their children. It also offers clues as to if, how, and how much, healing might be possible.

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Reader Responses to Milk and Venom

A great read on a rare theme!

“I took Milk and Venom with me on holiday to find it a wonderful read and quite a sexy one too in its opening chapters, somewhat unexpected in a novel with such a grave and unusual theme at its heart. For this is a novel with a theme rare in literature — maternal abuse. It charts the struggle of two sisters Millicent and Geena to deal with the fallout of being brought up by a mother who was both physically and emotionally cruel to them throughout their childhood and into their lives as adults. It focuses largely on the younger sister Millicent, for whom promiscuity became a mistaken search for the love she didn’t get from her mother, and her low self esteem as a result of this.

What attracted me in particular though, as a reader in my 70s, was to find an older character such as Hermina, also in her 70s, playing such a key role, not just in the life of Millicent but also in that of her young daughter Alice as Hermina begins to take on the role of the ‘good mother’ filling the void left by her recent bereavement. I was touched by the depiction of Hermina’s continued relationship with her husband Sam after his death, his voice still reverberating within her, often with wise counsel. She is, of course, the counterpart to the antagonist in the novel, namely Millicent’s horrendous mother.

Millicent’s final acquisition of a sense of self worth through creating work that is meaningful for her and through ultimately falling in love with a decent man is beautifully charted. As is her sister’s journey of seeking redemption through the excesses of her very singular and wonderfully outrageous art work.

But the spine of the novel thematically — the mother who produces venom rather than milk — is hugely shocking and very powerfully illustrated, as is her daughters’ touching, continuous hope for some sign of change on the part of their mother until the final acceptance that this will never come, there will be no redemption. This was such an important and unique thread.”

— Sonja Linden
Playwright, Founder/Artistic Director
ViSiBLE Theatre, London

“I like this very much! … especially the way the author talks about Millicent’s being a woman who thinks about being a woman in relation to men, who thinks about sex. She is as attracted to men as men are to women, and that is a delight — liberating, even. (I mean for me — to hear women thinking that way!) And she has humor, too. And she is human… When she felt sorry because she had “no one to fuck” her, she won my heart! I literally wanted to hug her… So yes, definitely, Millicent speaks to both sexes!

And I like the author’s obvious knowledge of the Roman setting, the Italian setting and the Italian society… Most important is that this is a well-moving narrative with strong characters and an exotic setting which is very appealing. It will appeal to anyone who has ever wished that s/he could have lived in Rome. …Marvelous!”

— Thomas E. Kennedy
Author of novels, short story collections
and works of non-fiction

A well-written story about daughters, mothers and motherhood

“What impact do our parents have on who we become as adults? More specifically for this novel: How can a daughter liberate herself from a mother who bullies her children psychologically, hits them, even actually hates them? How can a child who has been treated that way learn to become a good mother to her own children?… I was moved to tears as I read this novel… at the descriptions of the cruelty the mother put her daughters through and because Millicent treats her own little daughter, Alice, with so much wisdom and tenderness. Moving! The language is exquisite — it flows — and the transitions between the present and the past are “seamless.” I know for sure that there are many daughters — and sons — out there who have had similar experiences to tackle — even if the folks around them haven’t wanted to believe them. Who likes knowing that some mothers actually can’t love?”

— Kirsten Aasheim
Educator, Norwegian and French literature

“Once I started reading Milk and Venom, I couldn’t stop… It’s a rare book that comes right out and states that there are some mothers who don’t love their children and thus do not deserve to be loved in return. But this book also gives readers a reason to believe that children of such mothers can still succeed in life and love!”

— Molly Prescott Porter
Communication Consultant

“Mother Phyllis is a total pip. She sappily “character disorders” herself all over the page. She’s difficult, and self-centred and quixotic and (yeah, Borderline – at least 7 of 9, or however many characteristics the DSM-IV requires, maybe hits ‘em all). The thought of her raising children is, well, hair-raising…. But to the story it doesn’t really matter a whit whether she’s diagnosable… — Phyllis has already nailed her own character by being and doing.

The characters are so vivid that it is a natural for dramatization, with a multi-age female cast… it has all the makings of one of those movies that ends up being on “my favorite” list.”

— Barbara Van Noord
Psychiatric Social Worker
specializing in the treatment of
Borderline Personality Disorders

“These characters are so vividly drawn that reading becomes like watching a film. Such great roles for women, that it’s hard to resist casting it. Bette Midler would make a killer Phyllis Milner, as would Judi Dench or Imelda Staunton. Picture Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep or Catherine Deneuve as Hermina. Scarlet Johansson could do a sexy Millicent, Geena Davis would have been perfect for Geena, but sadly, she’s no longer Geena’s age. Today’s explosive Juliette Binoche would work. So, of course, would Noomi Rapace, if they could make her appear taller. A child to play our Alice, the story’s epicentre, is surely out there somewhere. And for those luscious men’s roles? Herb, Fabrizio, Enrico, Massimo, Leo, Sam? And who should direct?”

— Anna Luise Kirkengen
Professor emerita
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Trondheim, Norway

“This is a book that makes you believe you know the people portrayed, while making you believe you’ve been to a place you’ve never seen. A perfect balance of what you would want to say to someone (if only we weren’t all so damn polite all the time!) — and what you would HOPE to say to yourself — if you ever found yourself in the situations… the relationships… described. Sensitive and strong, sexy without guilt, this book will have you listening to that inner voice that dares to question a world that says you MUST love someone… even if that someone doesn’t reciprocate, care and worse: Isn’t even aware of the harm they do. Milk and Venom allows the reader to imagine a world where it is A.O.K. to walk away.”

— Sarah Chanderia
Hecate Entertainment Group

It will move you emotionally

“I have just finished reading this wonderful book and it was a treat. Senstad is a fine writer. The rhythm of the language was consistent, her sense of humor came through, and most of all, the characters were so well-developed. It brought me to tears many times throughout the reading, as grief always moves me.”

— Lee Simon

“I started last night and woke this morning at 6am, got my coffee and curled up under my blanket on the couch to continue reading and I cannot put it down. I love it! …I finished the book and now I’m missing everyone, particularly — all of them!”

— Anne Simon
Educator, Private School Head

“A book I couldn’t put down once I started reading it. …I was struck by the acts of courage in this creation. It is an invigorating book. Yes, I would give it to others. It’s funny and sexy in necessary ways. It’s also first and foremost about a painful and important journey. It hit me in the belly. It has a strong narrative and a deep, deep undertow.”

— Thea Stabell
Theater Director, Professor

A whirlwind of feelings

“I have just finished Milk and Venom — intense, a whirlwind of feelings, both good and bad. I felt like I was there. The female characters are each very unique, strong and fully expressed: Hermina, Geena and of course her sister, Millicent, whose awakening took just as long as it needed to. I also loved the ‘evolving from child to teen’ Alice. The character of the sisters’ mother, Phyllis, is complex and destructive with no insight into the true feelings of others. The author has poured tremendous skill and emotion into every page of this book.”

— Diane Keevil Harrold
Artist

“Enthralling! Compulsive reading! Set in the glamorous, sensual, sexy Italy of the dolce vita and in febrile northern California, Susan S. Senstad’s Milk and Venom plunges us into the darkest corners of the female mind/psyche. Transgressing current gender politics, Senstad explores the destructive legacy of toxic motherhood. Two daughters, sisters, adopt brazen, volatile strategies in their desperate fight to save their sanity, claim their freedom, and create – out of the ruins – their lives and themselves. This is a wonderful book – a must read – highly dramatic, acutely self-aware, and often, in its ironies, quite funny.”

— Gilbert Reid
Writer, broadcaster and author
Son of Two Fathers, So This is Love and Lava