Emily McBride on Maternal Mental Health and the Lindsay Clancy Trial

The article discusses a conversation with Emily McBride, a fiction writer, about her debut novel titled Queen Mab.

McBride is interviewed by co-hosts V.V.

Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell for the podcast Fiction/Non/Fiction.

The discussion explores themes of maternal mental health, particularly postpartum psychosis, and how these themes intersect with the real-life case of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts woman charged with killing her three children.

Clancy’s insanity defense has drawn significant public attention, sparking broader conversations about postpartum mental health conditions.

McBride’s novel centers on a 23-year-old graduate student named Madeleine, who struggles to bond with her baby and begins to fear her child might be a changeling—a creature from folklore substituted for a human child.

The novel uses literary allusions to fairies and changelings to reflect the pressures and disorientation of new motherhood.