Book review: Child’s play turns deadly in social satire
Author Clara Dillon. Picture: Cara Hodge
There’s a touch of about this engrossing psychological drama that sees mother-of-one Sara trying to befriend the other mums at the school gates in an effort to ease the path for her nine-year-old daughter Lexie, a pleasant if slightly anxious child.
Sara, her husband Adam, and Lexie have moved from London to Dublin for career and lifestyle reasons. (Both parents work in finance but Sara is taking time out while Adam is involved in a new enterprise.) The premise of this novel is an attempt to figure out where it all went wrong, with Sara addressing Adam, narrating the chain of events that ends in tragedy with all sorts of nastiness leading up to the unexpected climactic finale.
There is more to Sara than meets the eye. She is reasonably self-aware and realises that apart from her beloved daughter, she has no other passions and has a detached view of humanity. But she wants Lexie to have friends.
When the leader of the BMs, (‘beautiful mums’ as they are dubbed) Vanessa, has to go to a charity lunch, she needs someone to babysit her daughter Polly, who is in Lexie’s class. Sara invites Polly to a play date, allowing Vanessa to attend the lunch in this gesture to fix things between the two women after a misunderstanding.
Vanessa, an inveterate snob, is quite a study with her weaponised politeness. Adam describes her as a south Dublin Cruella de Vil. Not only does she control the mothers but through Polly (an obnoxious kid), she controls the politics of the playground.
Inviting Polly to her home (which the bitchy little girl mocks) turns out to be a disaster for Sara. But Lexie “worships” Polly. Before the play date, Sara asks Vanessa to show her how Polly’s epi-pen works as the child is allergic to peanuts.
While the two girls, including a bunch of other girls from Lexie’s class are out playing in Sara’s garden, she suddenly hears a blood-curdling scream. It’s Polly who is motionless on the grass. A former nurse living next door comes into the garden and can’t find Polly’s pulse. It turns out Polly is seriously ill with life-changing consequences having suffered an anaphylactic shock.
Vanessa accuses Sara of having given her daughter peanuts or food containing traces of peanuts, and what ensues is a campaign of vilification, with Sara and Adam left horrified. Sara is adamant she did not give Polly peanuts.
The story is told mainly from Sara’s point of view. She is not a reliable narrator, though that only becomes evident as the novel progresses.
In a somewhat discordant element of this tale, there are chapters that only feature Adam and a woman called Zoe with whom he has an affair. This is a departure from the structure of the novel, with Sara recounting events.
Adam accidentally encounters Zoe on the Tube in London (which he visits frequently to try and finalise a contract). Zoe suggests going for a drink and he calls her, using a pseudonym and pretending to be a GP. What drives Adam to be unfaithful appears to be Sara’s coldness — the latter’s only concern is Lexie, who turns out to be dyslexic and feels stupid at school.
Will Adam, who adores his daughter, leave his wife? What will happen between Sara and Vanessa?
Apart from the anaphylactic incident, there is Vanessa’s claim that Sara is carrying on with her husband, David, as Vanessa’s glossy veneer hides an unhappy domestic life, while Sara’s world is thrown into disarray on every front.
This is a real page-turner, with vivid imagery and lots of suspense.
BOOKS & MORE
Check out our Books Hub where you will find the latest news, reviews, features, opinions and analysis on all things books from the Irish Examiner's team of specialist writers, columnists and contributors.
