The Scald-Crow

This self-deprecating, mordantly funny horror novel explores medical trauma through Irish folklore, asking "Can a sick woman ever be trusted?"

Brigid--that's the Irish Breej, not "Bridge-id," though it's not like she'd correct you--has had a rough go of it. Her mother abused her when she was little, her best friend (and secret crush) is too busy chasing some blonde to answer Brigid's calls, and she lost her job thanks to chronic pelvic pain with no identifiable cause. As a self-doubting, disabled adult, she's certain that everything that has happened to her is her fault. How could it not be, when every medical professional has dismissed her pain as anxiety, and her dearest Mammy has reminded her time and again that she's an ungrateful bitch?

Now Mammy has gone missing and Brigid's only option is to move back into her childhood home in the idyllic Midwestern town of St. Charles, Illinois. Soon the uncanny begins: A particular crow that once harassed her reappears, following her everywhere. A painting of Jesus keeps coming back, no matter how many times she throws it away. Frozen body parts show up in places rubber band balls and door stoppers ought to be. Every night the same nightmare repeats: her real Mammy is dead and decaying in the closet, and the identical Mammy who raised her is not her mother. But it's all in Brigid's head. It's all her fault. It must be. What other explanation could there be?

After all, since when can a sick woman be trusted?