Madapple by Christina Meldrum


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I can't explain this book properly. It's part immigration story, part murder mystery, part botany lesson, and part religious text. The main character is a teenage girl who lives with her mother in isolation in rural Maine feeding on whatever they find in the forest. One of the first things we learn about these two is her mother's claim that the girl was conceived of a virgin birth. The first real contact this girl has with society is when her mother dies of a disease that's crippling her with indescribable pain and the young girl is taken into custody. She ends up locating an Aunt who is a pastor at a church in a nearby town with two children of her own. They take in their cousin refugee, but each for their own reasons: the aunt feels she must reconcile with the dead mother, the girl cousin believes the virgin birth mystery and wishes to exploit her, and the boy cousin is in love with her. Calling their relationship unhealthy would be an understatement. Three threads tie the story together. The first is the plants, the botany the characters seem to know so well. The second is the mythology that is discussed throughout. Everyone appears to be a scholar of Nordic myth and obscure aspects of Christianity that may or may not be true. The third is a murder trial that is released to the reader one cross examination at a time. The prosecutor thinks the young girl is a murderer who does not have a grip on reality and uses her extensive plant knowledge to kill the people around her. These small court interludes presented in between each chapter effectively cause the reader to question the main character's story. It becomes difficult to find the truth. I was relieved that all was revealed in the end.

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