Superficial Villainous Bitches Have Taken Over Novels

More than 150 years after Bovary breathed her last, the market is flush with psychopathic she-beasts and irredeemably miserable vipers. Villainous bitches are popping up everywhere. That shouldn't surprise anyone, given the twisty vine of rage rightfully wrapping itself around American womenfor the last several years (or decades). In fiction, these women follow the Bovary template in at least one respect: The rare angry singleton aside, they are married or recently divorced women, unhappy with the dull rituals of companionship or the woefully inadequate men to whom they've chained themselves. What we've come to call domestic thrillers have become, by and large, stories about psychos in shitty marriages. Unfortunately, many of these psychos are one-dimensional - angry women without a shred of complexity, cardboard storyboards for the inevitable film adaptation.