Lead Review (Lost Lambs)
- Book: Lost Lambs
- Location: United States (USA)
- Author: Madeline Cash
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash, novel set in fictional small-town America.
Author Madeline Cash has an acute sense of the ridiculous in everyday life, as is seen in her humorous novel Lost Lambs. The novel tells the story of the dysfunctional Flynn family, using a uniquely quirky narrative style. The Flynns are Bud and his wife Catherine, together with their three daughters. The couple has come to ‘the arrangement’, which allows for an open marriage – but only Catherine thinks this is a good idea. This is so that she can have an affair with the neighbour, Jim. For husband Bud it is the beginning of a downward spiral. Their daughters – Abigail, Louise and Harper – are each facing struggles of their own, such as dealing with adolescence and their relationships within the family.
The characters are exciting and often hilarious. The author goes into great detail about the inner turmoil each faces, and she pokes fun at their decision-making and reasoning. Abigail is pretty and a party girl who is looking for love. Louise is the slightly resentful middle child, with a talent for holding her breath. Harper is the youngest child and “too clever for her own good”. She studies languages for fun and spots errors in her father’s accountancy work.
Cash sets the action in a small fishing town but doesn’t tell us exactly where in the States it is. Location isn’t a critical part of the novel, though the author does describe her fictional town in sufficient detail to give us a flavour of what it is like. Religion plays a key part in the story, mostly Roman Catholic but also other denominations, and although the author doesn’t exactly ridicule the church, it is certainly held up for examination. The Lost Lambs of the title refers to a church society that provides support and fellowship for townsfolk who are struggling with their mental health. Bud joins it, as a condition of his continued employment, after upsetting his employer.
What could have been a mundane storyline is made considerably more dramatic by the most unlikely means, 
such as encounters with terrorism and gangsters, but it is all handled with a light touch and a huge dose of sniggery humour. I received a proof copy at Cheltenham Literature festival, where it was helpfully explained that some apparent typos in the text are in fact a swarm of pesky flies which turn any word containing the letters “nat” into “gnat”, due to an infestation of said insects in the church. This is what you’re dealing with, dear reader – and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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