‘The Lamb: A Novel’ by Lucy Rose
c.2025, Harper, $27.99, 329 pages
What’s for lunch?
You probably know at breakfast what you’re having a few hours later. Maybe breast of chicken, sauteed in tomato sauce. Barbecued ribs, perhaps? Leg of lamb, beef tongue, pickled pigs’ feet, liver, and onions, the possibilities are just menus away. Or maybe, as in the new book, “The Lamb” by Lucy Rose, you’ll settle for a rump roast and a few ladyfingers.
Margot was just four years old when she noticed the mold on the shower walls and wondered what it might taste like. She also found fingers in the shower drain from the last “stray,” the nails painted purple, and she wondered why they hadn’t been nibbled, too.
Cooked right, fingers and rumps were the best parts.
Later, once Margot started school, Mama depended on her to bring strays from the woods to their cottage, and Mama would give them wine and warm them up. She didn’t often leave the house unless it was to bury clothing and bones, but she sometimes welcomed a gardener who was allowed to leave. There was a difference, you see, between strays and others.
But Eden…. Margot couldn’t quite figure her out.
She actually liked Eden, who seemed like a stray but obviously wasn’t. Eden was pretty; she never yelled at Margot, although she did take Margot’s sleeping spot near Mama. Eden made Mama happy; Margot could hear them in the bedroom sometimes, making noises like Mama did when the gardener visited. Eden was a very good cook. She made Mama softer, and she made promises for better times.
And yet, things never got better. Margot was not supposed to call attention to herself, but she wanted friends and a real life. If she was honest, she didn’t want to eat strays anymore, either, she was tired of the pressure to bring home dinner, and things began to unravel. Maybe Mama didn’t love Margot anymore. Maybe she loved Eden better or maybe Mama just ached from hunger.
Because you know what they say: two’s company, three’s a meal…
Not a book to read at lunch? No, probably not – although once you become immersed in “The Lamb,” it’ll be easy to swallow and hard to put down.
For sure, author Lucy Rose presents a somewhat-coming-of-age chiller with a gender-twisty plot line here, and while it’s occasionally a bit slow and definitely cringey, it’s also really quite compelling. Rose actually makes readers feel good about a character who indulges in something so entirely, repulsively taboo, which is a very surprising – but oddly satisfying – aspect of this unique tale. Readers, in fact, will be drawn to the character Margo’s innocence-turned-eyes-wide-open, and it could make you grow a little protective of her as she matures over the pages. That feeling plays well inside the store,y and it makes the will-they-won’t-they ending positively shivery.
Bottom line, if you have a taste for the macabre with a side-order of sympathy, then “The Lamb” is your book and don’t miss it. Fans of horror stories, this is a novel you’ll eat right up.
