Sundial

This book, another killer novel from Catriona Ward, is a deep look into mother/ daughter relationships, nature versus nurture, and the damage that secrets can do. In my opinion, Ward’s The Last House on Needless Street will go down as a classic, so I was excited to pick this one up.

I’m glad I did, though I’ll warn readers that the first third of this book is a tough read. It’s focused on an extremely abusive marriage and a very pained family. It was hard to read, and I’m mostly immune to horrors true or otherwise.

As the story progresses, with jumps in time and as told by multiple narrators, pieces begin to fall into place and the story fills in. Again, Ward shows extreme mastery of language, keeping me wondering and guessing throughout. Watch her, because her verbal sleight of hand is amazing. You won’t know the whole story until you’ve done the work to get there, and you’ll be led down more than one dead end path.

If you are bothered by very realistic physical and mental abuse, or by scientific animal testing, be aware that this book pushes those buttons. Hopefully you can get past that and read one of the more bizarre, yet heartfelt, mother / daughter novels I’ve ever read.

Adding an extra star to emphasize that I am not a big fan of thrillers, and in the end that’s the genre this book fits into best. It’s not so much that there are twists. Most thrillers are more interested in making you guess what happened, but this one wants to make you guess what matters - to the author as much as the characters. The book doesn’t aim to trick you the way most thrillers do. It’s exploring a very particular idea and it follows the thread of it through multiple POVs, revealing the past slowly until everything starts to fit together and clarify what it’s actually interested in. All the assumptions I made at the beginning of the book weren’t wrong so much as unimportant. Where the book starts reveals very little about where it ends. I appreciate that control of structure. And I have to give extra points for the inclusion of the Arrowood stories. They add a layer that without being frustrating, and sometimes provide a welcome break from the other POV sections. It’s also fun to see a writer who clearly knows her craft intentionally write badly.

The description and the fact that the author's previous book was in my best of the year list for 2021 made me excited to read this book. My excitement began to dwindle within the first few chapters due to the slow pace and unlikable characters.

Rob is married to an abusive man with whom she shares two daughters. One of the daughters has strange mannerisms and frightening habits.

I understand there are a great many women who stay trapped in abusive relationships but Rob did not share any of the reasons a woman would usually stay. Rob has access to money and a car and a job and the ability to leave. Most abusers start out sweet as pie, but Rob's husband Irving was an obviously creepy person long before she married him and she knew it. By the time the reason for her marriage is disclosed the book is over.

Rob had a very unconventional upbringing but I will not go into detail because I don't think you are meant to know about it until the middle of the book, which was another problem for me. The pace is slow, and the book is made even longer by the fact that Rob likes to write stories, using the names of her family, which she will go back and change later. Rob is not a great writer so there was no enjoyment in being made to read her fantasy novel or whatever it is she is working on. At first I forced myself to pay attention to them in case there were important clues to why or how she got herself into this situation but after the third or fourth time these stories seemed to be an unnecessary interruption so I skimmed them. This book would probably have been better off without them since it would have been less long and drawn out and draggy.

You may enjoy it more than I did, but this one just wasn't for me.
I received an advance copy for review.