Member Review
Review by
Carole T, Reviewer
Catriona Ward has done it again! After the tour de force of The Last House on Needless Street, comes the very bible black Sundial.
This is a book that feels as if it was written in a heat shimmer – distorted, twisting, evolving – it was a challenging book in some ways and that added to its strangeness.
It begins with Rob Cussen discovering that her 9-year-old daughter, Annie, has caught chicken pox which means that her husband, Irving, must be having another affair. Their marriage has become one of petty bickering, one upmanship and cheap wins at each other’s expense. She is nervous, almost scared of her older, 12-year-old daughter Callie and her fascination with dead animals and speaking in emoji language. But it’s not until her younger daughter, Annie aged 9, takes an overdose of Irving’s diabetes pills that she takes action. After having discovered the cap to the pills in Callie’s hiding place, she and Callie take the road to the Mojave Desert and Rob’s family home, Sundial. This is where it all began for Rob and her dead twin sister, Jack, and where it will end for either Rob or Callie.
Pale Callie and an invisible puppy keep Callie company and perhaps ghosts are easier for her to relate than her own family. But she’s not the only family member that is being haunted.
Sundial is deserted except for the graves of her parents, Falcon and Mia, and others. They lived with Pawel and the on-site dogs. Nearby is a derelict puppy farm, the Grainger place, which has a disturbing significance throughout the book especially near the end.
The twins grow up on Sundial, lost in their own world with their own language and trying to make their own separate way in life. Jack runs away but returns and Rob goes away to college. She finds it difficult as an outsider. As she says, ’ the pack wouldn’t accept me’. Mia conducts experiments on dogs which may be upsetting for some readers. Slowly, through flashbacks, the past is revealed in its heart-breaking cruelty and Rob begins to think that history is repeating itself and only she can stop it.
The House on Needless Street was such a tour de force in how it so adroitly pulled the rug out from under the reader and Sundial has the same quality. In Sundial the author creates a kaleidoscope world in which is constantly shifting. The characters are haunted; by their past, an inability to see what’s in front of them and the ties of family. The claustrophobic world of twins, nature vs nurture and the right to play God as well as toxic relationships and a really dysfunctional family with secrets that finally refuse to be buried any longer. It also has one of the scariest final paragraphs that I’ve ever read.
This is not a comfortable book to read at times as there is cruelty to animals and humans so it may offend some readers. But I admired the author for taking risks and creating a disturbing and extremely creepy book which will linger in my mind for a very long time.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.
This is a book that feels as if it was written in a heat shimmer – distorted, twisting, evolving – it was a challenging book in some ways and that added to its strangeness.
It begins with Rob Cussen discovering that her 9-year-old daughter, Annie, has caught chicken pox which means that her husband, Irving, must be having another affair. Their marriage has become one of petty bickering, one upmanship and cheap wins at each other’s expense. She is nervous, almost scared of her older, 12-year-old daughter Callie and her fascination with dead animals and speaking in emoji language. But it’s not until her younger daughter, Annie aged 9, takes an overdose of Irving’s diabetes pills that she takes action. After having discovered the cap to the pills in Callie’s hiding place, she and Callie take the road to the Mojave Desert and Rob’s family home, Sundial. This is where it all began for Rob and her dead twin sister, Jack, and where it will end for either Rob or Callie.
Pale Callie and an invisible puppy keep Callie company and perhaps ghosts are easier for her to relate than her own family. But she’s not the only family member that is being haunted.
Sundial is deserted except for the graves of her parents, Falcon and Mia, and others. They lived with Pawel and the on-site dogs. Nearby is a derelict puppy farm, the Grainger place, which has a disturbing significance throughout the book especially near the end.
The twins grow up on Sundial, lost in their own world with their own language and trying to make their own separate way in life. Jack runs away but returns and Rob goes away to college. She finds it difficult as an outsider. As she says, ’ the pack wouldn’t accept me’. Mia conducts experiments on dogs which may be upsetting for some readers. Slowly, through flashbacks, the past is revealed in its heart-breaking cruelty and Rob begins to think that history is repeating itself and only she can stop it.
The House on Needless Street was such a tour de force in how it so adroitly pulled the rug out from under the reader and Sundial has the same quality. In Sundial the author creates a kaleidoscope world in which is constantly shifting. The characters are haunted; by their past, an inability to see what’s in front of them and the ties of family. The claustrophobic world of twins, nature vs nurture and the right to play God as well as toxic relationships and a really dysfunctional family with secrets that finally refuse to be buried any longer. It also has one of the scariest final paragraphs that I’ve ever read.
This is not a comfortable book to read at times as there is cruelty to animals and humans so it may offend some readers. But I admired the author for taking risks and creating a disturbing and extremely creepy book which will linger in my mind for a very long time.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.
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