A Small Madness by Dianne Touchell (review)

Quiet Rose blossoms in her relationship with Michael, until she finds herself pregnant. A worried Michael seeks a plan, but he’s met with firm denial from Rose: “I can hide it. It’s not real.” Aside from determined attempts to starve or poison the growing life Rose views as an alien intruder (“I have a virus in me”), she remains steadfast about the pregnancy’s nonexistence or even disappearance, confusing Michael and Rose’s best friend Liv, the only two people who know. Her implacable repudiation takes a horrific turn when she delivers prematurely at home alone, hemorrhaging dangerously, and manages to convince Michael to deal secretly with the situation and the resulting infant (“It must be buried,” she insists), but that’s a secret it proves impossible to keep. Australian author Touchell was inspired by real-life events, and she imbues the inherently sensationalistic story with a nagging desperation and clarity of characterization that lifts events above the melodramatic. The third-person narration makes Rose’s dissociation both chilling and heartbreaking, and Michael is realistic in his inability to push past Rose’s freeze to necessary action; their parents are a little overvillainized, but their portrayal gives context for the kids’ behavior. The book only addresses the infant itself obliquely, and it remains ambiguous whether it was stillborn or not; the focus is really on Rose and Michael, and what they do when they feel like there’s no one to turn to. Readers will come for the melodramatic plot and stay for the revealing characterization.