Jennifer McMahon’s anti-Christmas present “My Darling Girl” has two absolutely amazing scenes. One is when our increasingly unreliable narrator, Alison O’Connor, calls someone from the past for information she wants. The entire convo is by phone (Alison, as are most McMahon characters, is in Vermont. He’s in a car in California) and the details of the conversation, as Alison describes them, are intermixed with traffic sounds.
And then there’s the Christmas party scene, in which Alison gets more information while holiday cheer and conversation swirls around her. It’s amazing. I stepped back from trying to figure out the kinky plot to think, “how does she DO this?” (The answer is she’s been doing this for 12 books now, and she hasn’t slacked off at all.)
The story begins with her taking in her dying mother, an abusive drunk who has (maybe) scarred her back. Anyhow, since her back is scarred, we can at least assume someone has done something to her. Her husband and two daughters, six and 16, are enchanted with their grandmother, while Alison, amidst strange and stranger happenings that only she seems to see--hordes of flies, cackling birds--becomes increasingly unraveled.
McMahon dashes you around corners, too. Sometimes things that you think at first are part of the author’s fantasies are seen by all. Or at least Alison tells you so. The whole book cascades on to a conclusion that’s dazzling and unsettling.
Notes and asides: supernatural stuff, a dog unharmed, lesbian couples, a knife, carving.