Synopsis:
Brigid—that’s the Irish Breej, not “Bridge-id,” though it’s not like she’d correct you—has had a rough go of it. Her mother abused her when she was little, her best friend (and secret crush) is too busy chasing some blonde to answer Brigid’s calls, and she lost her job thanks to chronic pelvic pain with no identifiable cause. As a self-doubting, disabled adult, she’s certain that everything that has happened to her is her fault.
When her mother goes missing and Brigid’s only option is to move back into her childhood home in the idyllic Midwestern town of St. Charles, Illinois, the uncanny begins: A particular crow that once harassed her reappears, following her everywhere. A painting of Jesus keeps coming back, no matter how many times she throws it away. Frozen body parts show up in places rubber band balls and door stoppers ought to be. Every night she dreams that her real mother is dead and decaying in the closet, and the identical mother who raised her is not her mother. But it’s all in Brigid’s head. It’s all her fault. It must be. What other explanation could there be?
To survive, she’ll need to ignore what her mother and her chronic-pain doctors have always told her: that her perception of reality can’t be trusted.
Review:
Genuinely creepy and wickedly funny, Grace Daly’s “The Scald-Crow,” has everything a discerning reader could possibly need- a very friendly pet cat, a heaping helping of mummy issues, and a portrait of Jesus that, much like the man himself, loves to stage a dramatic return. Chuck in an incredibly three-dimensional unreliable narrator and a house that is probably haunted- well, then you’re cooking with gas. Packed with incisive commentary upon trauma, disability, identity and women’s healthcare, Daly’s writing has a wonderful ability to tickle the funny bone, her writing liberal with “fecks,” and sardonicism, before twisting the knife. A high-wire execution of voice and vision, “The Scald-Crow,” is out from Creature Publishing October 14th, and is worth the read for the cat alone.
We follow Brigid, who is having a rough time of it. She is in constant, grinding agony- specialists shrug, medication fails and the pain persists, in fact, it’s only gotten worse, and Brigid has had to leave work. It’s taken a financial toll, and she’s backed into a corner when she receives a phone call. Her estranged, abusive mother is missing, presumed dead, and as her next of kin, the house is hers if she wants it. All things considered, she does. The house is much as Mammy left it, the only room that has changed, Brigid’s own. Moving in is quite the ordeal, especially with Brigid’s chronic pain, but with the help of her therapist Carol, and a to-do list, she’s doing ok. The whole process is made much harder still though by a mysterious home invader, Mammy’s portrait of Jesus which seems to grow legs and propel itself back onto the wall each night, and the familiar scald crow that seems to be watching her.
I found Daly’s deployment of the unreliable narrator particularly devious. I’ll tell you for why. Brigid is told again and again by the healthcare system that she does not have endometriosis, thus there is no earthly reason why she should be experiencing the persistent pelvic pain that she is. Doctor after doctor dismisses her and the only real reason she continues to go is so that she can claim a meagre slice of her previous salary. It’s a casual injustice, and it’s one that I couldn’t help but feel slightly complicit in, because there are points in which we too question, never Brigid’s chronic pain, but her mental state. Can we trust the account of this sick woman? Weird shit happens… is she hallucinating, hysterical, haunted? Is this simply trauma leaking out in surreal bursts? Or is there really something supernatural going on? Daly walks this line between doubt and belief perfectly, never wibbling too far one way or the other, almost until the very end.
There’s a lot to love about this book, namely the cat, Cú, who was done dirty by the cover I promise, and deserves his own spin-off novel, but also the fusion of the folkloric and the gothic, and, above all, Brigid herself, who leaves plenty of room for discussion on identity. First off is how that’s infringed upon by disability. It, for example, impacts how she dresses, she has a “uniform,” made up of leggings and a t-shirt. When I consider Brigid as a character, her illness is the first thing that springs to mind, despite how incredibly interesting and endearing and witty and warm she is. Daly also notes how trauma shapes and melds identity, something that we won’t get too far into, as that’s something best revealed to you by Brigid herself. There’s commentary upon sexuality, being the child of immigrants, (literally nobody can pronounce her name (Breej) it seems) and catholicism. She is one of those characters that doesn’t merely drive a novel forward, but makes the novel, anchoring it in her pain, her humour, her Irish heritage, her abject fear.
Grace Daly spins a great yarn that is by turns witty, self-deprecating and deeply unnerving. With its absurd (I’m looking at you Jesus) but also terrifying haunting, and a Mammy who will continue to creep me out for the foreseeable, this is a novel that manages to be many things at once. As well as a gothic-y, folky story “The Scald-Crow,” is a little rom and a little com, and goes to show that horror does not have to choose between making you laugh and making you squirm.
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