Nightshade

[cornerofmadness]

Nightshade by John Saul

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I chose the wrong time to read this but I'm not sure there is ever a good time for me to read this one (I was health care worker severely injured by a dementia patient so while you can't blame them, there is some PTSD around that). Speaking of trigger warnings: on page child abuse in just a few paragraphs in, abusive parent, intimated incest, dementia, murder.

Joan Hapgood is insistent in moving her mother Emily, into her husband's home. Emily is in the more severe side of dementia including hallucinations, agitation and violence. But even without that she is the type of mother who chose a golden child and her other child in the house thrall who can do nothing right (something I've seen in my extended family). Joan is not the chosen one. Her dead sister Cynthia is. Emily keeps Cynthia's room as it was the day she left, convinced she's coming home. SHe also hates Joan's son, Matt, constantly referring to him as Joan's bastard.

When her husband, Bill, wants to put Emily in a home where she can be properly cared for, Joan refuses. She has deluded herself into thinking her mother can be brought out of her dementia. Emily is convinced Cynthia has come home and something definitely has. Something that might be Cynthia's ghost, something that wants Matt for starters.

Joan is a character you want to slap hard and then just keep slapping for prioritizing her mother over her son and husband (especially her son who is obviously in free fall and needs help) Yes, there is that whole complicated Stockholm SYndrome/self preservation thing going on with Joan but how many times can you put your own child second?

Things continue to go from bad to worse but there's an odd narrative distance in this. We're told more than we're shown which is odd for a story teller of Saul's caliber. This isn't his best work but it's still creepy enough if that's what you're looking for.



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