The Stepdaughter

Discover Caroline Blackwood''s darkly brilliant debut - a perfect rediscovered classic for fans of Shirley Jackson and Ottessa MoshfeghA lavish Upper West Side apartment is the site of a familial cold war about to enter a phase of dangerous escalation.J is a lonely woman without even the luxury of being alone. Her husband has fled to Paris with his latest flame, but he''s left J not only with their own four-year-old daughter, Sally Ann, but with the sulky cake-mix addicted, thirteen-year-old Renata, a leftover from his previous marriage. The presence of a pert au pair, Monique, serves only to make J feel more isolated and self-conscious. What she''d like is someone to blame.Writing letters in her head to imaginary friends, J delights in dwelling on the hapless Renata, who ''invites a kind of cruelty''. This is an invitation J fully intends to take up - and like so many stepmothers before her, she will find that wickedness, once indulged, is a difficult habit to kick. A mordant black splinter of a book, Caroline Blackwood''s first novel stands as proof positive of her eternal mastery - and mockery - of the darkest depths of human feeling.