Strange Sally Diamond: A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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Sally's Dad told her to put him out with the trash when he dies. He said that he would be dead so he would not know any difference. So when he dies Sally follows his instructions. He was 80 years old and small. She put him in a large garden trash bag and put it in the barn and carefully put it in the incinerator barrel and put some Petro over the top and set it going. She is now the center of attention from the media. I screamed with excitement when I received this book from the publisher. This is a very dark thriller. I'm lost in admiration for Liz and her writing . . . vivid, pacy, taut but so very moving' Marian Keyes Nugent does a fine job with her complicated main character and with her intense storyline that will take us from Ireland to New Zealand. It is rare to come across a central character as multi-layered and complex as Sally Diamond. And in its telling, Strange Sally Diamond evokes compassion and deep

They were done so well. There are good characters and evil characters. I loved Sally the best and loved watching her grow up and meeting friends and following her conversations with them. Peter, Mark, Conor Geary, and Tom: these men really made my head spin! Author Liz Nugent expertly reveals their relationships with Sally; and,Chapters narrated by Peter, fill us in on what Sally and her mother endured (heartbreaking) but I was most captivated by Sally in the present day, as you cannot help but root for her to succeed. (heartwarming). Lying in Wait, published in 2016, went straight to number 1 and was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club. It won the Radio 1 Ryan Tubridy Listeners Choice Award at the Irish Book Awards.

When I read the promotional blurb for Strange Sally Diamond, the most recent release from Irish crime novelist Liz Nugent, I was expecting something similar to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine or The Maid — both of which feature neurodivergent main characters. Sally doesn’t talk, so people think she can’t speak. She doesn’t do ‘normal’ things so people see her as strange, but when she takes a comment made by her father quite literally to “..throw him out with the rubbish when he dies”, she creates a media storm that thrusts her into the spotlight that she is ill equipped to deal with. Even worse Sally is ill prepared for the revelations her actions will unveil about herself and her past.

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Liz Nugent worked as a stage manager in theatres in Ireland and toured internationally before writing extensively for radio and television drama. Another bloody scorcher from ‪Liz Nugent that kept me up to the wee hours to finish. Liz is one of the most intelligent, original, twisty crime writers working in the genre today.” As she begins to discover the horrors of her early childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time - making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say. a b c "Dystonia didn't stop me becoming a writer, 22 March 2014". www.irishindependent.ie . Retrieved 16 May 2020.

Sally is socially defective. She acts like a deaf person because she doesn't want to talk to anyone. She also learns that people don't always say what they mean. She never cries. She does not remember any childhood memories before the age of seven. She loves to play the piano. She has PTSD from her traumatic past that she has no memory of. Someone from her past is trying to get a hold of her. Sally has learned to live with and accept herself for what she is - a recluse and ‘strange’. Someone socially awkward that is mistrusting of others, and whilst something ‘rare’ and different, she doesn’t know how she got to this place and why her father has encouraged her to disengage from the world around her. Sally Diamond — the first of two narrators here — is different though. She is not so much unreliable as eccentric — “strange “. With characteristic subtlety Nugent explores how her unusual personality is rooted in the horrors of her childhood. She is a fascinating, even magnetic character — endearing yet exasperating, well-intentioned yet still potentially dangerous. Liz Nugent inks six-figure deal with major US publisher". 14 September 2016 – via www.rte.ie. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help)In 2016, Nugent was awarded the Ireland Funds Monaco Bursary to be the Writer-in-Residence at The Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco [17] and was also Writer-In-Residence in the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris [18] in April 2019. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don't always mean what they say. And maybe Sally isn’t all that strange after all. Maybe her awkwardness and weirdness stems from her horrific childhood. Maybe that can explain her complex behaviours. The book opens with Sally Diamond and her adoptive father laughing about putting him out with the trash when he dies. Sally thinks the joke is that her father says she’ll be crying her eyes out, but she never cries, so har har.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy reading about the psychological effects of trauma and abuse. Sally is an unforgettable character! Jaw-droppingly clever . . . One of the best books I've read in a long, long time. I can't stop thinking about it' Lucy FoleyThis line gives us a peek into a society where divorce is clearly not as straightforward as it is in western cultures. The reader is forced to wonder why Lin has to return to this village, where he’s returning from, why he wants to divorce his wife and how long this has been going on. We get the sense that our protagonist is tired of the annual pilgrimage and yet, he is relentless. He needs this release. We know immediately that the book is well named. Your first novel grew out of an award-winning short story. And you’ve written a play. Do you like to stretch yourself as a writer? This was a heart stopping , heart-breaking read and had me on the edge of my seat. A difficult subject but expertly executed in the hands of this experienced author. While it’s dark and disturbing, it is never graphic. This is an author that doesn’t shy away from tough subjects and a story that kept me up way past my bedtime. Great characterization, a smart and well thought out unique plot with lots of twists and turns to keep the reader on the edge of their seats. If there is something I have come to expect from a Liz Nugent book it’s that it will be completely twisted, highly original and very, very dark and Strange Sally Diamond is no exception. The unwanted attention she garners from the episode with her father results in the unraveling of deep and dark secrets from Sally’s early childhood - a past of which Sally has no memories and has been kept from her by the parents who raised her and is only now being revealed to her through a series of letters left to her by her deceased father - triggering a series of events that has Sally grappling with her truth, questioning everything she has been brought up to believe about herself and trying to emerge from the shadows of her painful past. It won’t be easy because, with the secrets, there are people from her past complicating things further and possibly threatening her physical and mental well-being.