Sally Diamond is a reclusive woman a little over forty. Everyone considers her somewhat not quite normal, but they’ve grown used to it—so much so that some even think she’s deaf. Besides, you meet all kinds of people in the Irish countryside. Not all of them, правда, burn their fathers’ bodies in the backyard—but that’s just a detail. He himself told her to do it before he died.

The police have some questions about the legality of such a self-arranged burial, but that’s not what frightens Sally. What scares her is that soon after the improvised funeral, she receives a strange package from an anonymous sender hinting that he knows something about her past. And worst of all, she remembers nothing about herself.

Despite her friends’ protests, Sally begins her own small investigation.  
But the truth does not always bring freedom...

A Cozy (?) Life in Confinement

A grounded and realistic novel told through diaries and letters, immediately immersing the reader in the dense haze of mystery, near-domestic horror, and deep tragedy. At the center of the story is a woman who is only now beginning to make sense of her life and comes to realize that she has been living in a cage all this time. In fact, not just one—but several.

And her entire life is, essentially, a lie.

This is revealed far from immediately, but by the end it becomes clear that there is no fundamental difference between the one who gave her life and the one who raised her. Detached sadism and paternal indifference are two sides of the same coin.

Sally Diamond is a bird with clipped wings. Her fate has long been broken, yet she clings with all her strength to the illusion of normality. Sally’s life could have been different, but she became a victim of an unjust system in which she (and other women) had no voice. She was never given a chance to heal—supposedly for her own good. “You’re just different, and you’ve already suffered so much—why would you need education or psychotherapy?..”

All the characters in the novel—Sally herself, her new friends, and mysterious acquaintances—are portrayed very vividly and convincingly. From the writing style, it’s immediately apparent that Miss Diamond truly resembles an autistic person in her way of thinking and expressing emotions (although things are more complicated than they seem). The second important character initially appears noticeably more normal—and that is precisely what makes him so frightening.

Strange Sally Diamond is built on contrast: two voices, two stories, different pacing and points of view. The main heroine’s story unfolds slowly in the present over several years, while the new narrator methodically and chillingly describes his life from early childhood, decade by decade. She is a reclusive hermit; he is a reflective stranger. They are fundamentally opposite in everything, and yet somehow connected… but how? And why does he keep intruding into her fragile, orphaned life again and again?

Despite its heavy themes, the text is easy to read, the plot skillfully holds attention, and the shocking twists leave you no choice but to put the small book aside and stare at a single point for a few minutes. If you enjoy true crime and understand what horrors can hide behind the façade of seemingly well-off families, you will definitely like this story (if it’s even appropriate to use the word “like” after the whirlwind of emotions that awaits you). But for very sensitive and empathetic readers, it will certainly not be an easy read.

The novel does not merely captivate or shock excessively—it raises serious questions for Sally and for all of us. Can we fully free ourselves from the past and heal old wounds? Are we doomed to repeat our parents’ mistakes, or is there still a chance to atone for past sins? Is it possible to start life anew and become a different person, despite one’s surroundings?

Liz Nugent offers no easy answers. And spares no one—neither her characters nor her readers. The ending of Strange Sally Diamond is as contradictory and bleak as life itself. And that only makes it linger more powerfully in memory.

“As if years. As if seconds. As if in hell...”

Rating: 9/10 — gripping from the first pages, it leaves a mark and turns you inside out. A vivid, honest, living, and painful story, Strange Sally Diamond traumatizes the reader just as the search for truth torments its heroine. It suffocates—but does not let go until the very end.