Review: Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey

The Maddox family is under strain. Jen worries about her depressive daughter, Lana, and that she and her husband are not getting through to the teenager. In a last-ditch effort to make peace and rebuild their relationship, Jen decides that she and Lana will go on an art vacation. Yet instead of a much-needed respite from their daily stresses, and an equally necessary chance for mum and daughter to bond, Lana goes missing. Four days pass before she is found, and in those fragile hours, Jen can’t help but imagine that Lana has done something permanently destructive.

Lana returns looking worse for wear, and is adamant that she cannot recall what happened. The more Jen tries to push her, the more the young girl retreats into silence and melancholy. Yet the longer that Jen does not have answers, the more obsessed she becomes, until she finally retraces Lana’s steps to piece together the mystery surrounding her daughter’s absence.

Whistle in the Dark is an unnervingly realistic portrayal of a relationship in danger. You can’t help but share Jen’s frustration at an uncommunicative daughter with a flair for sarcasm and insults, but be equally sympathetic to a teen with an obtrusive parent who is both a smothering helicopter mother and totally unaware and ignorant. This dual sympathy is an indication of Healey’s versatility of a writer – both characters are rounded, filled with good and bad.  

Healey’s focus on the inner turmoil of the family, and the various emotional events are actually a foreground for the story of Lana’s absence – it is a clever (albeit somewhat slow) representation of the weight of depression, and the consuming power it has on those affected. As Jen begins to try understand her changed daughter, she begins to question her own choices, bringing her more into herself and further from her daughter – a vicious cycle.

Whistle in the Dark is a read of immense emotional magnitude – not only for its focus on depression and anxiety, but for the manner in which those feelings invade the reader. The story is filled with subtleties that draw you in; making you an active but silent member of the family. It is a clever and unnerving technique which leaves the reader feeling impotent and yet voyeuristic. This may not be a book for someone wanting a quick escape or fleeting entertainment – this is something to be dissected and delicately examined.

Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey is published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House.