There are
parts of this story that are hard to read, but any story that has its origins
in a brutal kidnapping of a young teenager is not going to be a pleasant
tale. And, the events and feelings being
narrated by the daughter born into the circumstances of the kidnapper raping
the mother is going to deal with complex and disturbing issues. That the daughter of that unholy union didn’t
know her father was also her and her mother’s jailer until the daughter was
twelve contain memories that to her were “normal,” but to others are
untenable. Living isolated in a
wilderness where animals are hunted and survival of the fittest is in constant
play makes for some uncomfortable moments, too. But, again, this is not a story with which
you are supposed to be comfortable. The
narrator is a survivor of an unimaginable situation whose demons in the form of
her violent father come back to haunt her in the flesh when she is in her late
twenties and has a family of her own.
Helena
Pelletier is the daughter of her mother’s abduction, and she has
miraculously managed to move past the trauma of her younger years and is now married
with two young daughters and living in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan.
The trauma has not left her
without scars, but she is grateful for her life of normality and the love of
her family. Then, her father, Jacob
Halbrook, the man who ruined her mother’s life and twisted hers breaks out
of prison, killing two guards. The
manhunt for this dangerous criminal is centered where the clues lead, but
Helena knows her father deliberately left those clues to throw the police off
the track of where he’s really headed.
And, Helena, who knows this man better than anyone, knows he is headed
for her and her family. Having learned
tracking and survival skills at her father’s knee, she also knows that she is
the only one who can recapture him.
The reason I
found this book fascinating is that we are given insight into how a child born
into such a disastrous situation thinks, or how she comes to process and
accommodate her past into her present and future. The author uses alternating chapters of
Helena’s past and present to acquaint readers with the years Helena spent as a
daughter unaware of her parentage origins.
While we see the man who fathered her as a monster, an object of
disdain, Helena’s perception is colored by the isolation of living in a
wilderness and not knowing any other example of what families were until she
was twelve and loving a father who taught her everything she knew. To say her feelings and thoughts are outside
of most people’s realm of relevancy is an understatement. But, this story presents a perspective that
is important to consider when our “normal” isn’t someone else’s.
Karen Dionne
tackles this difficult subject matter with a directness that doesn’t avoid the
ugliness or discomfort of the story.
Life is scary and cruel and unfair in a world where a young girl is
kidnapped by a narcissist and gives birth to a child. That child deserves to tell her story like it
was and is, without any sugar coating.
Dionne’s description of the UP of Michigan was an educational one for
me, as I’m completely unfamiliar with that area. The description of the marshland where Helena
grew up shows both the beauty and the harshness of its isolated setting, a metaphor for Helena's life there. The use of Hans Christian Anderson’s
fairytale The Marsh King excerpts at the beginning of Helena’s early years
chapters serves as the allegory for good vs. evil in man’s nature, begging the
question which is stronger, and more specifically which is stronger in
Helena.
The Marsh King’s daughter is a
book that will haunt you, but it is also a book that will keep you completely
engaged in its uniqueness and well-paced plot.
The characters are presented in all their rawness of culpability and
trauma, but the examination of a mind and a person who must overcome disturbing
origins to emerge as an accepted member of society is a harrowing story worth
experiencing.
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