The Lamb

“On my fourth birthday, I plucked six severed fingers from the shower drain.”

Author Lucy Rose uses juxtaposition to create a surreal opening line for the novel. The image of a four-year-old child picking out severed fingers from a bathtub places innocence in unnatural proximity of violence, immediately creating an aura of menace.

“The tub yellowed near the plughole and there was a peachy hue up the curve of the bath. It was the same color as my skin. Milky and a little buttery, like the outer edges of a bruise. Mildew and dried-up water peppered the glass screen. Black mold had crawled up the plaster and between the grout. The bathroom was small and the dark corners harbored cobwebs, rings of damp and hairline cracks.”

The text uses description and visual imagery to convey the cloying claustrophobia of Margot’s life. Rose uses the simile of a faded bruise to describe the sickly color of the bathtub, making Margot’s very surroundings appear diseased. Margot’s home, like the woods that surround it, thus contains hidden dangers and ugly secrets, reflecting Nature as Refuge and Danger.

“We are what we eat, Mama always said.”

An example of the text’s use of gallows-humor, Ruth’s utterance of a famous wellness mantra is unintentionally ironic as the food she is eating is human meat. Ruth uses the maxim to explain why strays must be kept happy before they are killed, so that their happiness becomes part of the consumer.