The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

Published by Spiegel & Grau on March 11, 2014

The Weight of Blood is a novel about two women who did not choose their lives but did their best with what they had. It is also a novel about families -- the "Blood" in the title -- and the heavy weight people are sometimes required by kinship to bear.

It would not be politically correct to refer to the characters in The Weight of Blood as hillbillies, but most of them fit the stereotypes that the term evokes. The two exceptions are Lila and her daughter Lucy. They generally tell their stories in alternating chapters, although a few chapters fill in gaps by focusing on other characters. The two storylines take place at different times, Lila's in the past and Lucy's in the present.

After turning 18 and leaving foster care, Lila takes a job with a fellow named Crete in Henbane because it offers room and board. Crete wants to take advantage of Lila but his nicer brother Carl is the one who wins her affection. Jealous admirers of Carl think Lila must be a witch who cast a spell on him. In any event, Lila has a rough time at Crete's until Crete and Carl work out a deal that changes Lila's life.

Lucy is earning money for college by working for her Uncle Crete's canoe rental business during the summer. While cleaning a trailer, she finds a necklace that she once gave Cheri, a mentally disabled woman who was murdered and dismembered at the age of 18. Before Cheri's death, the disappearance of Lucy's mother while Lucy was still a baby was the biggest mystery in Henbane.

The twin mysteries that occupy Lucy's mind -- what happened to her mother and what happened to Cheri -- provide the novel's dramatic tension. Some aspects of the novel are unconvincing. The circumstances of Cheri's demise are a bit over-the-top, although they are consistent with the book's gruesome tone, which piles evil upon evil in the monstrous town of Henbane. The explanation of Lila's disappearance seems anticlimactic. I never entirely bought into the story and I didn't buy the ending at all -- it's just too convenient.

Despite being lukewarm about the plot, I loved the character development. Many of the characters are unusually creepy but Laura McHugh creates them in such vivid detail that I was left with the unsettling feeling that the vile characters were real. Other characters gain the reader's sympathy. I also like the way the story is written. The characters speak in authentic voices. McHugh builds suspense skillfully although she lets it fizzle away before the story ends. She also writes with a good sense of pace. The Weight of Blood has its problems, but not so many that I was tempted to stop reading before it reached its conclusion.

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