Book Thoughts: Daisy Chain by Mary DeMuth

Daisy Chain: A Novel (Defiance Texas Trilogy) by Mary DeMuth is Southern Fiction complete with a taste of Flannery O'Connor horror. Jed's best friend, Daisy (and according to her, future wife), went missing.

And it's his fault.

She'd begged him to walk her home. She told him he'd be sorry. But he was too concerned about what his father would do if he was late. She was right. Now Jed has to deal with the guilt.

As fourteen-year-old Jed searches for Daisy, he cracks open the secrets of his family and secrets of the town.

Jed grows up during that summer. In the beginning, he sounds more like a nine-year-old than a teenager (a fact I sometimes found annoying), but by the end, he found himself, if you will, and his teenaged voice. As he grows up, he has to decide if he will let anger overtake him (as it has his father, most notably, and his mother), or if he will choose forgiveness and peace.

DeMuth did an amazing job of portraying characters through the point of view of a young teenager. As the novel progresses, the reader suspects there's more to the characters than what Jed sees (I'm impressed with Mary's ability to hint at this while never leaping away from Jed's POV). Then Jed himself sees bits and pieces about his parents, about Daisy's mom, Emory, and about others.

Then there's Sissy, Jed's little sister. Though she doesn't write poetry, she reminds me of the little sister in Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. She was my favorite character. The fact that she loves Anne of Green Gables doesn't hurt that.

It's a page-turner. I knew the ending and still couldn't put the book down (much to the annoyance of my husband, poor man, who thinks bedtime is for sleeping). Mary knows how to develop and sustain suspense. The story has aspects of horror (although it's certainly not a horror story), especially in Sissy's mysterious encounter with evil ("If evil's coming to get you, it'll find you--even in your bedroom"). 

It's the first of a trilogy, and the author does a good job of giving us closer while retaining enough tension and unanswered questions to make me tap my fingers in impatience for the next book. (I've been told if I guess, Mary will let me know if I'm on the right track.) The book pulls at the loose threads of secrets, but the unraveling only begins.

The story is couched from Jed's perspective thirty years later, although this is underdeveloped: a few lines in the beginning, a paragraph or two in the end, and a mention once (maybe twice?) in the middle. This undercut its significance. In fact, I'm not sure I understand why Mary chose this technique.

Also, Jed's metaphors can be a bit much (and every once in a while have to be explained to make sure we get it).

I highly recommend this book. Mary DeMuth is one of the better CBA authors. She has a flair of literary in her writing.

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