Dan
This is the story of two troubled young women spiralling round each other, bound by a small Irish town and the child who disappeared there twenty years ago. There’s the one who left, running wild and addicted to chaos, and the one who remained, turned inward and curdled. Neither of them are especially likeable, but by the end of the book we are at least approaching understanding. There’s a song I was reminded of when reading, with a lyric that goes “once you’ve touched the poison, you poison everything you touch”, which isn’t so far from the character work here. DeeDee and Caitlin are vividly drawn, and their interior lives are convincing. This characterisation is one of the key strengths of the novel. Part of me wishes we’d seen more of this with other character’s points of view bought in (there’s one character who maybe gets unfairly short shrift), but that would risk undermining the other pillar here, which is the intensity of the story. I tore through this, reading the whole thing in a day and a half, and that laser focus on the two leads is a big part of the reason. A very accomplished debut that deserves to do well.
This is the story of two troubled young women spiralling round each other, bound by a small Irish town and the child who disappeared there twenty years ago. There’s the one who left, running wild and addicted to chaos, and the one who remained, turned inward and curdled. Neither of them are especially likeable, but by the end of the book we are at least approaching understanding. There’s a song I was reminded of when reading, with a lyric that goes “once you’ve touched the poison, you poison everything you touch”, which isn’t so far from the character work here. DeeDee and Caitlin are vividly drawn, and their interior lives are convincing. This characterisation is one of the key strengths of the novel. Part of me wishes we’d seen more of this with other character’s points of view bought in (there’s one character who maybe gets unfairly short shrift), but that would risk undermining the other pillar here, which is the intensity of the story. I tore through this, reading the whole thing in a day and a half, and that laser focus on the two leads is a big part of the reason. A very accomplished debut that deserves to do well.