The Daughter – Liz Webb
I lean in and whisper the question I have never let myself utter in twenty-three years. “Dad, did you murder Mum?”
Hannah Davidson has a dementia-stricken father, an estranged TV star brother, and a mother whose death opened up hidden fault lines beneath the surface of their ordinary family life. Now the same age that Jen Davidson was when she was killed, Hannah realises she bears an uncanny resemblance to her glamorous mother, and when her father begins to confuse them she is seriously unnerved.
Determined to uncover exactly what happened to her mum, Hannah begins to exploit her arresting likeness, but soon the boundaries between Hannah and her mother become fatally blurred.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy of The Daughter which I received through Netgalley
Hannah has returned to her family home to care for her ailing father. He has taken a fall and been hospitalised so Hannah is dividing her time between the challenging hospital visits and staying in her childhood home surrounded by all the memories which this brings back. Her dad’s dementia means he is not always aware of what is happening around him and he often seems to believe he is living in the past if his reference points and stimulus bring his memories to periods long gone.
This is how Hannah finds herself on a dangerous and traumatic spiral in The Daughter. Hannah had been going through a very difficult time in her personal life and the combination of stopping her medication and not taking proper care of herself means she has lost a lot of weight. Hannah’s father had not seen her for a while before his fall and hospitalisation and when he looks at his daughter from his hospital bed it appears his dementia leads him to believe that Hannah is actually her mother Jen. Jen died when she was the age which Hannah is now and Hannah’s father was the primary suspect in her murder.
From his hospital bed Hannah’s father sees his “wife” and with a flash of apparent lucid thought he tells Hannah he is “sorry”. Sorry for what? What has her father felt he needs to apologise to her dead mother for? Could it be that he is *finally* confessing to her murder and showing remorse as his life draws to a close?
Hannah decides she must discover the truth about her mother’s death. The incident which effectively destroyed her family and set their lives on an unforseen path. To do this Hannah needs to connect with her estranged brother (now a successful TV star), engage with her creepy and over-familiar neighbours, chase down old friends of her mother (who do not want to be known as such) and even speak with the policeman that was convinced her father was a murderer.
The Daughter is a web of lies, scandal, tragedy and secrets. Hannah herself has skeletons in her closet and as she digs deeper into the life of a mother she barely knew someone may turn her own mistakes against her.
Liz Webb has done a great job keeping this domestic drama a tense and engaging read throughout. I knew with certainly at least three times where the story was heading and I was wrong each time. I got there in the end but I definitely enjoyed being wrong and revisiting my suspicions.
Scandals, secrets and lies all make for great stories – this is one such story.
The Daughter is published by Allison & Busby and is available in hardback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-daughter/liz-webb/9780749028756