Strange Sally Diamond

Product Information

Sally is socially stunted to the point where she pretends to be deaf when in town so she doesn't have to interact with anyone.

Strange Sally Diamond: A Novel by Liz Nugent | Goodreads Strange Sally Diamond: A Novel by Liz Nugent | Goodreads

Strange Sally Diamond has led a sheltered life and with her adoptive parents in the midlands of Ireland and when her father passes away she takes her request literally to put him out with the bins. Strange Sally strides onto the page, fully formed and funny as hell (this is Liz, we’re talking dark funny). She has a tendency to interpret things quite literally which draws unwanted attention to her now, at the age of 43.In the sixth novel in Taylor’s series set in the years after the Great Fire of London, a body is discovered in the blackened ruins of an almshouse that architect Cat Hakesby is rebuilding. So glad to see that I'm not the only one who's put off by the currently all-too-popular trope involving an "odd" person who is actually on the autism spectrum or mentally ill. Reading 'Strange Sally Diamond' has been tumultuous from an emotional perspective and I mean that in a positive manner.

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent | Goodreads Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent | Goodreads

Although I wasn’t satisfied with the conclusion, this book is probably my favourite thriller of this year. I want to say this is Liz Nugent's best book yet, I think it is, then I remember my other favourites Lying In Wait and Our Little Cruelties. At first their adopting her seems a kindness, but you may begin to sense that the psychiatrist father was every bit as controlling as Conor Geary, at least in a psychological sense. The narrative is shared between Sally and another character whose past is connected to Sally’s, their stories converging toward the end.

An outstanding achievement which transforms the dark psychological thriller map with both bravura and delicacy. It will make you gasp in horror at times yet have you laughing too, it is shockingly, dark and intense at times that it will break your heart, but there is hope in the story. At once allegorical and brutally realistic, this short novel is a powerful indictment of racism as well as a thoroughly unsettling portrait of a man in the grip of an existential nightmare. Liz Nugent has written a haunting and poignant tale with a full palette of emotions, one that won’t be easy to forget any time soon. Nugent has explored two different forms of trauma and abuse here; Sally's was the more straightforward of the two.