No one loves an "evil child" story more than yours truly. So, when I first heard about "Baby Teeth," which is Zoje Stage's first novel, I was curious to see what spin she could put on this familiar literary trope. I am afraid the results fall far short of my expectations, and still demonstrate that William March's "The Bad Seed" is the gold standard in this genre, with Thomas Tryon's "The Other," a close second.
The Jensens (pronounced "Yensen") are a perfect family, living in Pittsburgh. But there are problems from the start. Suzette, the mother, suffers horribly from Crohn's disease, and other intestinal ailments, which caused me to question why she would risk being pregnant in the first place. Husband Alex is stoic and clueless to what is going on around him.
As for Hannah, their seven-year-old daughter, well, she is a problem in more ways than one. Housing a hatred for her mother that is eventually explained away a bit too simplistically as Oppositional Defiance Disorder, this child's manipulative, harrowing sense of menace to Suzette, including covering her bedroom floor with thumbtacks, and then taking a hammer to the injured woman, is clearly psychopathic. The frustrating thing about the book is that is starts out being funny and nasty--the child overly precocious, the parents absurdly clueless. I was laughing at this point at Hannah's antics, but, when she begins to sexualize her father, and observe her parents having sex with a sense of comprehension beyond even a seven-year-old today, I had to wonder, what Zoje Stage was going for.
My confusion was furthered by her going for an Ann Rice-"Exorcist" take, with Hannah claiming to be a French witch, Marie Anne Dufosset, who was burned at the stake ages ago.
What the hell is going on here???????????
The resolution, if one can call it that, is so disappointing, it almost does away with what has gone before. Hannah is simply diagnosed as a child psychopath, and tucked away in a mental institution. The ending, which is supposed to be SO shocking, I will not reveal. I will just say it was kind of ho hum to me. If the story were carried forward, no matter what Hannah did, sooner or later, she would be back in the bin for Life.
Zoje Stage adds nothing to the evil child trope. Rather, she detracts from it. She is all over the place, trying to explain Hannah; when things get really clinical, I was reminded of Louise Wilson's non-fiction book, "This Stranger, My Son," about raising a child who is a paranoid schizophrenic. And this was about forty years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was looking forward to "Baby Teeth" being the hit of the Summer. Instead, it is a dud. Save yourselves the trouble of reading it, darlings, as it adds nothing to the evil child trope.
I am amazed it even got published, in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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