Sunday Business Post review
‘Strange Sally Diamond is a shiny new jewel in the queen of crime's crown’
BERT WRIGHT
April 11th 2023
Liz Nugent is sui generis, which is to say nobody writes quite like her. In the nine years since her stunning debut, no other Irish writer's stock has risen more dramatically and her compelling fifth novel has the next-level energy to propel her career to even greater heights.
Nugent's previous titles have always embraced wordplay. Granting her protagonist eponymous billing could be a masterstroke, however, elevating Sally Diamond to the plane of titular icons such as Bridget Jones and Eleanor Oliphant.
That said, Sally Diamond is not her real name and judging by the extraordinary opening it's by no means obvious that she is any kind of heroine. Heroines rarely try to cremate their dads in the back yard.
Sally, you see, has a habit of taking things too literally. When her father dies, she recalls his facetious instruction to put him "out with the bins" and duly obliges, to the consternation of the local community. "I'm socially deficient." she explains.
How she got to be this way will slowly become clear, but her late parent was an experienced psychologist and has found an authoritative diagnosis elusive. None of the usual labels quite fit. "The fact is you are a bit odd, that's all." he tells her in a posthumous letter.
After a traumatic childhood experience, we discover, Sally was placed in the care of medical professionals Jean and Thomas Diamond. They adopted the girl and shielded her from all knowledge of her early life.
Raised and home- schooled in an isolated rural community, she had little or no contact with the locals - who believed her incapable of speech.
With the death of her father and the news of Sally's unorthodox disposal methods, everything changes. She becomes a huge media story which reveals her real identity as Mary Norton, the daughter of Denise who was the victim in an infamous kidnapping case. These are the “disturbing circumstances" revealed in Tom Diamond's letters to his daughter. How she copes with such revelations - plus fresh ones still to be recounted - will propel the narrative arc for the rest of the book.
Nugent is a dextrous plotter who delights in keeping her readers off balance, revealing crucial information only when she is good and ready.
Just when you think you're getting a handle on the plot, she suddenly changes tack and forces you to re-evaluate all that's gone before. Compounding this creative confusion, Nugent favours the unreliable narrator device. She entrusts the telling of her tale to two psychologically damaged characters whose fates are inextricably linked.
The second, identified as Peter, shows up only a quarter of the way through but this is as much his story as Sally's it's a hard novel to talk about without risking spoilers, so let's leave readers to discover the significance of Peter for themselves.
Some may find the Heath Rob-inson-stvle complexity of Nugent's plots excessive. Because her authorial voice is so strong and unmistakable, however, she can get away with almost anything. All great writers have this confidence in the sound of their own voice. If at times there are extravagances in terms of motivation and verisimilitude, it matters little because the voice projects an author marshalling her materials and her readers' emotions with complete assurance.
Nugent's affinity for the dark side is well known and in this novel the milk of human kindness comes semi-skimmed. This will neither surprise nor disappoint her fans. Virtuous people hold no interest for her, she has said.
Strangely though, in Sally Diamond she may have created her most empathetic character yet. Sally is a hoot. She has no filter and wields language like a lump hammer, declining an invitation to the local school play because children are such terrible actors" and dumbfounding the local priest by announcing that she won't attend church more frequently because "it's so boring."
You can't help rooting for Sally Diamond, earnestly wishing it all works out well for her in the end. Then you remember this is a Liz Nugent novel, not a Shakespearean comedy. There will be no easy redemption on offer.
What's beyond dispute is that Strange Sally Diamond is another gem in the queen of crime's crown.
FICTION
Strange Sally Diamond
By Liz Nugent
Sandycove
€20.99