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Little Thomas didn't have time to finish his stewed apple. His mother hadn't given him the slightest chance...Few people stumbling across these three ashen bodies could have imagined the warm laughter filling the room just moments before the tragedy occurred.Of course the mind jumps immediately to the question of what could push a mother to murder her own baby. Marie must have been temporarily insane. Nope. Ines Bayard states up front that Marie had "contemplated killing her son before, several times and in different ways. She was very determined." So Marie must simply be a monster. But after setting the gruesome scene, Bayard expressly warns against stepping too quickly in the sinking sand of judgment:
Before any revelations that might invite the first verdicts, let's take a moment to appreciate the figure of this dead woman surrounded by her loved ones, the only one of the three to have remained upright.
After this passage, Bayard jumps back in time to when and how Marie and Laurent met, their lives together and their decision to have a child. What I will not spoil is the catastrophic event that sets Marie on the course that will end up where we started. Some may be averse to a story that begins with the end, but I rather like it and Bayard did a fantastic job of it. So good a job it was infinitely difficult to read yet impossible to set aside.
Watching Marie spiral as those around her are by turns concerned, clueless and lied to is fascinating and maddening. Marie's state can be summed up thusly: "Surrounded and alone, supported and abandoned by everyone." By the end, even as we know horror is coming, we can't help but feel for Marie, despite the hand she has in her own demise.
This debut really knocked my socks off, especially with a difficult premise to pull off. Bayard's next outing will definitely be on my list.
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