The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel – a Review

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Description:
A spellbinding story of a mother with nothing left to lose who sets out on an all-consuming quest for justice after her daughter is murdered on the town playground.

Sometimes the answers are worse than the questions. Sometimes it’s better not to know.

Set in the poorest part of the Missouri Ozarks, in a small town with big secrets, The Familiar Dark opens with a murder. Eve Taggert, desperate with grief over losing her daughter, takes it upon herself to find out the truth about what happened. Eve is no stranger to the dark side of life, having been raised by a hard-edged mother whose lessons Eve tried not to pass on to her own daughter. But Eve may need her mother’s cruel brand of strength if she’s going to face the reality about her daughter’s death and about her own true nature. Her quest for justice takes her from the seedy underbelly of town to the quiet woods and, most frighteningly, back to her mother’s trailer for a final lesson.

The Familiar Dark is a story about the bonds of family—women doing the best they can for their daughters in dire circumstances—as well as a story about how even the darkest and most terrifying of places can provide the comfort of home.

Review:

The death of her twelve year old daughter, alongside her best friend, catapults Eve down the rabbit hole; forcing her to slink back down to the dregs of her small town, and mingle in a toxic environment she was determined to leave behind. For the sake of her daughter. The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel explores the depths of despair and the comfort you receive from the unexpected. A poignant, gut-wrenching look into the most sacred of relationships.

You can take the girl out of the holler, but you can’t take the holler out of the girl. On a fact finding mission, it was almost too easy to revert to poor choices, leaving Eve to skirt the razor fine line between seeking justice and succumbing to the pull of the inevitable dark. Eve grapples with characters who mislead, who manipulate, who mean to avenge her daughter’s death. It’s a motley crew of family, too: drug-addicted-estranged mom, loyal police officer older brother, grieving parents of the murdered friend, locals who have their finger on the pulse of the underbelly of the Ozarks. Before long, Eve utilizes her long repressed lizard brain to inch closer to the truth. What awaits her is nightmarish and unthinkable. Revenge is hers to dispense, lest she cower from her mother’s savage degree of discipline, “Nobody takes something of yours, not if you’re alive to stop them.”

The death of a child is so incomprehensible, so contrary to the natural order of life, I struggled with the cold, stoic reaction of Eve. Still reeling from the death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, this hit differently. But we all mourn differently. I hate myself for being so judgmental. It’s not that Eve wasn’t howling with grief, she internalized the pain, followed the rage, to justice. I was frustrated by Eve’s lack of outward suffering, but my perception only trivialized her survival. “Outside I was still a functioning human. But inside I was ripped to shreds.”

Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, Amy Engel delivers beautiful prose. Whether you’re wrapped up in Eve’s hopeless impotence or relishing a special memory, Ms. Engel’s words are both sumptuous and inspiring. I had a difficult time processing my feelings at the end. Apologies if my review is rather choppy as a result. I was fury, I I was denial, I was bereft. Prepare to experience your own gamut of emotions. Even if Eve’s choices could never be my own, the grittiest truth is that Motherhood is not for the faint of heart.

Another triumphant offering by Amy Engel.

Reviewed by Carmen

Copy supplied for Review