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Psychological horror novel in which a young mother is forced to confront a shattering reality: that her 8-year-old daughter is a murderous sociopath. That this is the mother's story and not the child's demonstrates March's understanding of the little girl's condition: she herself is quite uncomplicated, having no conscience or sense of morality to shade her personality. It is the mother -- who gradually learns more than she could ever have wanted to know about the girl's condition -- who faces the hard, frightening decisions about what to do with her. It's a dark premise, but one that March executes faithfully and, for the most part, with psychological insight. It is, however, all a bit detached, even dry at times, which might save it from the excesses another author might have imposed upon it, but which also keeps it from burrowing as deeply into the limbic system of our brains, where reside our emotions and our memory, as it might have with a somewhat more emotive approach. (Not that the book is without humor: one character -- a rough, uneducated caretaker -- unconsciously develops the hots for this little girl who is every bit as anti-social as he is, yet discovers, in the end, that she is far more practical about it than he could ever be.) Adapted three times, first as a Broadway play the same year as publication, then as a film in 1956 -- based on the play and the book -- and finally as a TV movie in 1985.
Psychological horror novel in which a young mother is forced to confront a shattering reality: that her 8-year-old daughter is a murderous sociopath. That this is the mother's story and not the child's demonstrates March's understanding of the little girl's condition: she herself is quite uncomplicated, having no conscience or sense of morality to shade her personality. It is the mother -- who gradually learns more than she could ever have wanted to know about the girl's condition -- who faces the hard, frightening decisions about what to do with her. It's a dark premise, but one that March executes faithfully and, for the most part, with psychological insight. It is, however, all a bit detached, even dry at times, which might save it from the excesses another author might have imposed upon it, but which also keeps it from burrowing as deeply into the limbic system of our brains, where reside our emotions and our memory, as it might have with a somewhat more emotive approach. (Not that the book is without humor: one character -- a rough, uneducated caretaker -- unconsciously develops the hots for this little girl who is every bit as anti-social as he is, yet discovers, in the end, that she is far more practical about it than he could ever be.) Adapted three times, first as a Broadway play the same year as publication, then as a film in 1956 -- based on the play and the book -- and finally as a TV movie in 1985.
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