Stevie‘s review of Darling by Rachel Edwards
Women’s Psychological Fiction published by Fourth Estate 17 May 18
I’m a massive fan of unreliable narrators, and I love finding stories that are either told from an unexpected point of view, come from a fresh new author, or comment on issues that are so contemporary, they’ve hardly featured in fiction as yet. This story manages to combine everything in my list. It starts out as an examination of those left floundering after the UK referendum result, but also touches on the feelings of dissatisfaction amongst other groups that led to the vote and its outcome in the first place. However, this novel encompasses far more than the clash of ideologies I’ve just referred to and brings in a whole raft of other issues that have fallen out of the headlines over the past decade or two.
Darling White is a black British woman struggling to bring up her young son, who himself is facing a progressive and debilitating genetic condition. She has help from the boy’s father and from a group of fundraisers who organise events to help with research into her son’s treatment, but is estranged from her few living relatives. On the morning following the Brexit vote, Darling encounters overt racist abuse from those who believe the referendum’s outcome gives them the right to voice, and put into action, their obnoxious opinions and bigotry. Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of Thomas, a handsome, white American-born widower, who intervenes and then seeks Darling’s advice in return on what to buy his daughter as a birthday cake.
The pair arrange to meet again under pleasanter circumstances, and a whirlwind romance ensues, much to the horror of Lola, Thomas’ daughter, who would like her father all to herself or, failing that, in a relationship with the mother of one of her friends. Thomas is a successful architect, and Lola is horrified at the thought of acquiring a stepmother who is not only black, but also considerably beneath them on the social scale. Nevertheless, Thomas and Darling are soon living together in the house he designed for his first wife and, shortly after that, they marry. All the while, Lola is involving herself in right wing hate groups, via the boy she has a crush on (and an on-off relationship with). He promises her that he’ll get rid of Darling, but it turns out that she has secrets of her own, including a past connection to some of the adults running the group he’s a member of.
This book had me gripped with all its unexpected twists and turns. Darling is our primary narrator; however, we also get to know Lola through her journal and her lists of accomplishments – written down on the instruction of her therapist. We know all along that something bad is going to happen to one of them, but which one and how that event happens were totally unexpected to me all the way through the book. Darling’s hidden issues are revealed only very slowly as the story progresses, and as more people from her past appear in her new life to tell their stories.
Although this novel is ostensibly about a very particular point in the UK’s here and now, I doubt it will date as fast as many other contemporary stories, because it also speaks of issues that aren’t going away any time soon. I can’t wait to find out what the author has in store for us next.
Grade: A
Summary:
Lola doesn’t particularly want a new stepmother. Especially not one who has come out of nowhere and only been with her dad for three months. And – she’s not racist or anything – but since when did her dad fancy black women anyway?
Darling didn’t particularly want a new stepdaughter. Especially not one as spiteful and spoilt as Lola. She does want Lola’s dad though. And he wants her, so that’s that: Darling and Lola will just have to get used to each other.
Unless Lola can find a way to get rid of Darling.
No excerpt available.
