“An emotionally bracing, refreshingly intelligent, and ultimately heartbreaking story” (Kirkus Reviews) of two women linked by a tragic, decades-old secret.
When former nanny Maddie McGlade receives a letter from the last of her charges, she realizes the time has come to unburden herself of a secret she has kept for more than seventy years: the truth behind the death of Charlotte Ormond, the four-year-old daughter of the wealthy household where Maddie was employed as a young woman.
Weaving together Maddie's confessional to Anna—the would-be niece of the deceased Charlotte Ormond—and the prison diaries of Charlotte's mother, Harriet, who had been held responsible for her daughter's death, a vivid tapestry of the complex Ormond family history begins to form. Maddie also details her own life, marked by poverty, fear, sacrifice, and lies—a stark contrast to the wealth Harriet describes in her diaries, though not without its own troubles. A strict mother with her own repressed desires, the community was quick to condemn Harriet when Charlotte dies, allegedly as the result of Harriet’s punitive actions. Unwilling to stoop to defend herself and too absorbed in her own world, she accepts the cruel destiny that is beyond her control even as, paradoxically, it sets her free.
Based on chilling events that actually took place in the north of Ireland in 1892, The Butterfly Cabinet is a sterling example of dark, emotionally complex fiction.
My novel [of the year] would probably be The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill, which is based, I think, on a true story, about the darkness inside all of us, and how politeness and education will not always prevent us hurting even those who need us most. McGill has the ability to enter into the brain and heart of her characters and so to make us sympathise with people who commit acts we abhor.
