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The Lamb
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Overview
"From an incendiary new talent, a contemporary folktale in which a mother and daughter take in passersby and eat them, exploring queerness, first loves, and tense mother-daughter relationships. Margot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember. 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 face the possibility that her life is changing for good. The Lamb is a folktale, a horror story, a love story, an enchantment. With this teeming, gothic debut, Lucy Rose wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it"--
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780063374607
- ISBN-10: 0063374609
- Publisher: Harper
- Publish Date: February 2025
- Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.9 pounds
- Page Count: 336
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Every daughter contains a part of her mother. An imprint buries deep down, binding the two together, indelible. For Margot, the young protagonist of Lucy Rose’s dreamlike, visceral horror novel The Lamb, the connection with Mama is bloodsoaked, painful and unrelenting. Can a child ever sever herself from her mother? Mama and Margot have lived in the woods ever since Margot can remember. Apart from the occasional lost soul looking for shelter, they are alone. Mama calls the lost people “strays,” with a certain amount of affection. She eagerly settles them in the house, feeds them and serves them wine. It’s not until it’s too late that the hemlock in the drink takes deadly effect. Then, Mama and Margot can feed. Sometimes they have a lot to eat, and sometimes they go hungry. When times are bad, Mama is inconsolable, violent and harsh. Margot covers the bruises with her coat as she rides the bus to school. However, when a new stray named Eden comes to the woods, an entranced Mama welcomes her into the family. Margot feels a change come over the house with Eden’s presence, something she’s not sure if she likes. She must decide what sort of future she wants, but will it mean leaving Mama, Eden and the gruesome truth of their lives far behind? It may be the only chance she’s got for something new. Rose’s use of Margot’s first-person perspective in The Lamb allows for full authorial control over the shifting tones and feelings within the cabin. Much of the story happens in only a handful of locations, imbuing the plot with a sense of claustrophobia. Margot can’t escape the horrors of the house, how strays are harvested and eaten as the cycle continues. These happenings are at once terrifying and perfectly ordinary, the only thing she’s ever known. This is the genius of Rose’s folktale: She blurs the lines between hunger and gluttony, human and animal, love and revulsion. It’s hypnotic, grotesque and beautiful all at once. Rose’s writing confidently carries the reader through some seriously disturbing moments, with blood and more staining nearly every chapter. Coming-of-age shouldn’t be this bloody, should it? Maybe it’s the only way—feeding on what came before, new and full at last.
Every daughter contains a part of her mother. An imprint buries deep down, binding the two together, indelible. For Margot, the young protagonist of Lucy Rose’s dreamlike, visceral horror novel The Lamb, the connection with Mama is bloodsoaked, painful and unrelenting. Can a child ever sever herself from her mother? Mama and Margot have lived in the woods ever since Margot can remember. Apart from the occasional lost soul looking for shelter, they are alone. Mama calls the lost people “strays,” with a certain amount of affection. She eagerly settles them in the house, feeds them and serves them wine. It’s not until it’s too late that the hemlock in the drink takes deadly effect. Then, Mama and Margot can feed. Sometimes they have a lot to eat, and sometimes they go hungry. When times are bad, Mama is inconsolable, violent and harsh. Margot covers the bruises with her coat as she rides the bus to school. However, when a new stray named Eden comes to the woods, an entranced Mama welcomes her into the family. Margot feels a change come over the house with Eden’s presence, something she’s not sure if she likes. She must decide what sort of future she wants, but will it mean leaving Mama, Eden and the gruesome truth of their lives far behind? It may be the only chance she’s got for something new. Rose’s use of Margot’s first-person perspective in The Lamb allows for full authorial control over the shifting tones and feelings within the cabin. Much of the story happens in only a handful of locations, imbuing the plot with a sense of claustrophobia. Margot can’t escape the horrors of the house, how strays are harvested and eaten as the cycle continues. These happenings are at once terrifying and perfectly ordinary, the only thing she’s ever known. This is the genius of Rose’s folktale: She blurs the lines between hunger and gluttony, human and animal, love and revulsion. It’s hypnotic, grotesque and beautiful all at once. Rose’s writing confidently carries the reader through some seriously disturbing moments, with blood and more staining nearly every chapter. Coming-of-age shouldn’t be this bloody, should it? Maybe it’s the only way—feeding on what came before, new and full at last.