Other forces, however, are subtly maneuvering a cover-up, and not for the reason you think.Ĭatherine Breslin’s dauntingly sized novel isn’t horror per say, but more akin to a Jodi Picoult novel, complete with a final focus on a trial and the shifting chapters that give us a frank, sometimes unappetizing, look into the minds of the many characters. While the world wants to be hush-hush, Meg wants to know what happened behind those closed doors and blow the case wide open, perhaps releasing some inner demons from her own cloistered childhood. As a lengthy trial puts the sisters in the spotlight, it soon becomes obvious, at least to jaded journalist Meg Gavin, that society is too caught up on the idea of sex and its shameful forbidden nature and not on what really happened to that baby and to the young woman who couldn’t dare ask for help. When the baby is found, the story and the questions get darker.
When the adamant doctor, a Catholic who has issues with the disclosure, reveals that Sister Angela has passed a placenta, questions arise: where is the baby and how could a cloistered nun transgress beyond the strictures of the church? Moreover – how did nine months go by without anyone noticing, without anyone saying anything, without anyone helping? Her fellow sisters don’t know what to think – attack, medical issue, something worse that they have seen all along but steadily, righteously, ignored?
It starts when Sister Angel Flynn, a self-proclaimed virgin and beloved schoolteacher, is discovered in a pool of blood that stretches from the convent’s shared bathroom to the sister’s modest room. The author has a point – one that will catch many readers who were ready for a late night B-movie vibe off-guard. The real story, however, is something deeper, looking beyond horror into the soul of its characters and the motivations behind shame. At least, when I first read the crumpling back cover, that’s what I expected. Unholy Child’s back cover blurb promises something taboo – sinister secrets erupting behind convent walls boiling over with hints of Satanism and Rosemary’s Baby. A Fallen Nun, a Courtroom, and a Secret in Plain Sight
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