Kate Hamer’s debut novel reminds me of a conversation a friend had with her pre-teen daughter after a relative’s baby had died. “It’s the worst thing imaginable to lose a child,” said my friend. “No,” insisted her daughter. “It’s much much worse to lose a parent.” The Girl in the Red Coat doesn’t ask us to choose: it explores the nightmare scenario of a child going missing from the perspectives of both the mother and the girl.
Carmel Wakeford is eight when she becomes separated from her mother at a children’s storytelling festival (at which I think I detected a cameo role for the doyenne of children’s fiction, Jacqueline Wilson). A man who claims to be her estranged grandfather tells her her mother has been taken to hospital after an accident and that he’ll look after her now. A few days later, he gives her the devastating news that her mother is dead and her father wants her to remain with her grandfather. She’s taken to America to a new life on the fringes of society, moving between evangelical churches, where Carmel’s supposed “healing hands” are much in demand.
Carmel Wakeford is eight when she becomes separated from her mother at a children’s storytelling festival (at which I think I detected a cameo role for the doyenne of children’s fiction, Jacqueline Wilson). A man who claims to be her estranged grandfather tells her her mother has been taken to hospital after an accident and that he’ll look after her now. A few days later, he gives her the devastating news that her mother is dead and her father wants her to remain with her grandfather. She’s taken to America to a new life on the fringes of society, moving between evangelical churches, where Carmel’s supposed “healing hands” are much in demand.
Meanwhile, her mother is far from dead and searching frantically for her daughter even in places she could not possibly be. As the days turn to months and the months to years, Beth must find a way of living with her grief, as well as the sense that she is ultimately to blame. Her devastating loss brings a new perspective on what is and isn’t important, so that she is able to mend the rift with her estranged parents and to accept, and even befriend, her ex-husband’s new partner. Yet there’s always a hole where Carmel has gone from her life.
Novels about missing children are bound to tug at the heartstrings, although each manages to do so in its own unique way. Nevertheless, Beth got me thinking again about Olivia in The Cold Cold Sea whose daughter seems to have drowned, although no body has been found, just short of her fourth birthday. Carmel’s predicament as reluctant saviour reminded me of Chipo, the albino woman who is considered even more disturbingly special, in the novel Zebra Crossing. And I was intrigued that, like Peggy in Our Endless Numbered Days, she was eight when she went missing, old enough to have some memory of her previous life, yet young enough to be taken in by an adult’s lies.
Over on the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills is talking rocks, religious faith and connections. Her post, along with this novel (and especially Carmel’s situation) sparks a memory of another severed mother-daughter relationship. My friend’s mother, who has recently died after suffering from dementia for several years, was a healer in the spiritualist church. While she completely accepted her daughter’s scepticism about this, she insisted that I had within me some propensity to connect with the spirits and wanted me to have a “crystal”. As a staunch atheist, I found this quite difficult but, now she’s dead, it’s comforting to have that small piece of polished rock she gifted to me.
But I’m back to an alternative version of Beth’s experience for my 99-word story that shows a hard place and a connection:
Revenge fantasies kept me warm in bed. She’d lose her job; she’d crash her car; some thief would take her precious ring. The news infused my heart with joy. Let her learn how it feels to lose a husband.
The kids, though, mine and theirs, would lose a father.
I made a casserole, seasoned with rosemary, his all-time favourite. Thought I’d leave it on the doorstep, but the door opened before I could nip away. I took no pleasure from seeing her so unkempt. She opened her arms. We wept on each other’s shoulders. Soon we’d both be ex-wives.
Thanks to Faber and Faber for my review copy of The Girl in the Red Coat. Do you have a favourite lost child novel?
Novels about missing children are bound to tug at the heartstrings, although each manages to do so in its own unique way. Nevertheless, Beth got me thinking again about Olivia in The Cold Cold Sea whose daughter seems to have drowned, although no body has been found, just short of her fourth birthday. Carmel’s predicament as reluctant saviour reminded me of Chipo, the albino woman who is considered even more disturbingly special, in the novel Zebra Crossing. And I was intrigued that, like Peggy in Our Endless Numbered Days, she was eight when she went missing, old enough to have some memory of her previous life, yet young enough to be taken in by an adult’s lies.
Over on the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills is talking rocks, religious faith and connections. Her post, along with this novel (and especially Carmel’s situation) sparks a memory of another severed mother-daughter relationship. My friend’s mother, who has recently died after suffering from dementia for several years, was a healer in the spiritualist church. While she completely accepted her daughter’s scepticism about this, she insisted that I had within me some propensity to connect with the spirits and wanted me to have a “crystal”. As a staunch atheist, I found this quite difficult but, now she’s dead, it’s comforting to have that small piece of polished rock she gifted to me.
But I’m back to an alternative version of Beth’s experience for my 99-word story that shows a hard place and a connection:
Revenge fantasies kept me warm in bed. She’d lose her job; she’d crash her car; some thief would take her precious ring. The news infused my heart with joy. Let her learn how it feels to lose a husband.
The kids, though, mine and theirs, would lose a father.
I made a casserole, seasoned with rosemary, his all-time favourite. Thought I’d leave it on the doorstep, but the door opened before I could nip away. I took no pleasure from seeing her so unkempt. She opened her arms. We wept on each other’s shoulders. Soon we’d both be ex-wives.
Thanks to Faber and Faber for my review copy of The Girl in the Red Coat. Do you have a favourite lost child novel?
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