BOOK REVIEW | THE LAMB | LUCY ROSE

The Lamb | Lucy Rose

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Margot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember. When Margot is not at school they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door—"strays," Mama calls them, people who have strayed too far from the road. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she picks apart their bodies and toasts them off with some vegetable oil.

 But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

 With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.

REVIEW

The Lamb by Lucy Rose tells the story of Margot and her mother Ruth who live in the woods in rural Cumbria. Hidden away in the deep, dark forest they lure unwitting travellers (who they name Strays) to their cabin so that they can feed Ruth’s lust for human flesh.

The world of The Lamb tightropes between the modern world and the world of dark fairy tale.

Margot is a young girl who has been brought up by her mother Ruth who is the soul of carnal lust for all the things that pleasure her.

However, when a stray called Eden comes to the house, the dynamic of the household changes. Ruth’s attentions move from her daughter and as she grows, Margot changes and realises that the life that she leads is not something she wants.

Lucy Rose’s first novel is a pitch-black exploration of the changing relationship of a mother and her daughter. Margot is starved of love and attention and is regularly abused by her mother who resents Margot for taking away her individuality. This is illustrated in one of the most heart rending passages in the book where Ruth tells Margot that she never wanted to be a mother and that mothers put themselves and their needs second to the child and how she resents this aspect of motherhood. This wound is opened further by the appearance of Eden who acts as the catalyst to the events that shape the book.

However, it is not all darkness and need. There are moments of light and hopefulness, particularly when Margot experiences a sexual awakening with a girl in her class.

The acts of cannibalism in the book are monstrous and Lucy Rose describes them in great detail. However, there is an air of eroticism to the act of eating human flesh as Rose describes the gustatory satisfaction they have when eating the various body parts and how they are prepared to eat, for instance there is a passage where the group eat the fingers of a local man. Rose describes that they are covered in breadcrumbs mixed with garlic and rosemary and subsequently fried to make them crispy.

The characters in the book are equally as grotesque and loathsome. Margot’s mother Ruth is described great detail. How she smells and how she looks. Eden is also described and you get to imagine these two in their vivacity.

For those who may be a little squeamish, be prepared that there are some gory descriptions of the methods in which the people are killed and butchered.

At times the book can be a little repetitive at times, but on the whole this is a deliciously dark read that explores an number of different themes.