Little Deaths by Emma Flint Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“...but when tragedy strikes, there’s a tendency to assume that someone is different. Special. That there’s something about them that makes them the kind of person bad things happen to. Because the alternative—that bad things can happen to anyone, at any time—is unthinkable.”- Little Deaths, Emma Flint

Inspired by a true story, Little Deaths, like celebrated novels by Sarah Waters and Megan Abbott, is compelling literary crime fiction that explores the capacity for good and evil in us all.

It's 1965 in a tight-knit working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, and Ruth Malone - a single mother who works long hours as a cocktail waitress - wakes to discover her two small children, Frankie Jr. and Cindy, have gone missing. Later that day, Cindy's body is found in a derelict lot a half mile from her home, strangled. Ten days later, Frankie Jr.'s decomposing body is found. Immediately, all fingers point to Ruth.

As police investigate the murders, the detritus of Ruth's life is exposed. Seen through the eyes of the cops, the empty bourbon bottles and provocative clothing which litter her apartment, the piles of letters from countless men and Ruth's little black book of phone numbers, make her a drunk, a loose woman - and therefore a bad mother. The lead detective, a strict Catholic who believes women belong in the home, leaps to the obvious conclusion: facing divorce and a custody battle, Malone took her children's lives.

Pete Wonicke is a rookie tabloid reporter who finagles an assignment to cover the murders. Determined to make his name in the paper, he begins digging into the case. Pete's interest in the story develops into an obsession with Ruth, and he comes to believe there's something more to the woman whom prosecutors, the press, and the public have painted as a promiscuous femme fatale. Did Ruth Malone violently kill her own children, is she a victim of circumstance - or is there something more sinister at play? 

In my Silent Child review, I mentioned that I hate a certain type of literary mothers I like to call the "martyr mothers". Books with martyr moms in them are usually told from their point of view and the reason why I hate them is because they are always so beautiful and pure and innocent and they're always long-suffering and it seems like the only reason they have children is to make themselves look like even more of a martyr. The only use their children have in the plot is to make themselves look better. And oh boy, do we have a case here in the form of Ruth Malone. Her life is so hard, she has to deal with two young kids all by herself and has to work long hours as a cocktail waitress and also has to do with the police going after her when her children turn up dead. I couldn't really blame the police for doing so, since she was the last person to see them alive and she always seemed like she was hiding something, like when she was protesting about the police searching her apartment and got annoyed when they pointed out the amount of booze bottles in the trash, or when they talked about how much she was drinking or how many guys she brought home. I don't know about you, but drinking and men coming and going a) isn't a sign of a good mother and b) means that there is very good chance that either she did it or one of her boyfriends did. That's just common sense.

I was also annoyed by the reporter, who became convinced she was innocent, why? Because Ruth was so bewitchingly beautiful that she couldn't have committed such a heinous crime and besides, she was a mother. How could a mother kill her own children? Andrea Yates, anybody? I mean, it doesn't happen often because, you know, nature and hormones and all that, but still, is there any reason why Ruth couldn't have killed them? 

Flint is absolutely horrible at fleshing out her characters, by the way. I mean, the detective was so transparently evil that it was obvious he was the bad guy right from when he ate spaghetti without closing his mouth. It's just plain bad writing and also kind of offensive to use someone's appearance or manners to show that they are the antagonist, just as bad as it is to use beauty to show how good and pure someone is. The only time one can get away with that is in fairy tales meant for children. 

But the thing that pissed me off the most, made me think of the godawful Silent Child the most, is the ending. So here we go:

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

It's revealed at the end that Frank did it, which I kind of figured because at some points it's fairly obvious- it annoyed me because Ruth couldn't have done it because she was a mother, but Frank sure as hell could have killed them even though he's a father- but I digress. It's why he killed the kids that really got me going, since it's revealed that he killed them to get Ruth's attention. Jesus fucking Christ, the death of two small children was all because Ruth was so beautiful and enchanting. The kids were never anything more than a way to show everyone how great Ruth was and in the end, were nothing more than a fucking plot point. This is worst than Emma's "friend" helping kidnap Aiden because of how jealous she was of Emma. What the actual fuck, Flint?

MAJOR SPOILER SECTION OVER

The worst part about this book is that the writing is actually kind of decent, which means it's not even enjoyably bad the same way Silent Child was. It's just straight up bad and even offensive. It's also somewhat historical fiction- in the 60s- but there's not really much done with that. In the end, it's a feminist thriller, which means I probably shouldn't have picked it up in the first place, but it will definitely make my least favorites list at the end of the year. I hate you so much, Little Deaths, that you may replace Missing as my 1# least favorite book of 2017

2 out of 10