The Blue Girl

‘'And so, on Tuesday nights, I wrap the moon pies in aluminum foil and I tell myself that I will be able to save my daughter - that I will be able to save all of us - once all the secrets has been eaten, digested, and somehow done away with.''

An unnamed lake town that comes alive during the summer. The visiting tourists spend their quite, picturesque holidays and leave when summer ends, unaware of the secrets that haunt the small community. Unaware of the strange blue girl that eats moon pies filled with cream and lies. Unaware of the mothers who pour their faults and darkest secrets in the sweets, suffocating the Blue Girl, dragging her down in their mud. Unaware of the daughters' struggle to make amends for their mothers' mistakes. Unaware of the fathers who ignore everything and everyone.

The moon pies contain secrets too terrible to share. Secrets born out of regrets and wrongdoings, of stalled lives and unfulfilled wishes. Laurie Foos creates a contemporary tale using symbolism and psychology in a powerful, haunting scenery. The moon associated with womanhood and passion. The sweets, so deceptive in their nature, so tempting and harmful. The colour blue, a shade of guilt, melancholy and mystery. The thoughts of mothers and daughters conveyed through the haze, interrupting the silence of the girl who has no voice of her own. She still retains her own free will, though. The question is what will she choose to do with it?

Based on the medieval tradition of the Sin Eater, the villager who would accept the sins of the dying person and prepare the route away from Hell, Foos writes a beautiful, shocking novel about motherhood, family relationships and the need for understanding between the younger generation and their parents. A book impossible to review. You have to read it and experience it deeply...

‘'It's as if she lights up somehow, like a house you pass at night when the shades are drawn. You start to imagine what the people inside are like, whether they're watching sitcoms or waiting to kill each other, and you see that flash against the blinds coming from the TV screen. That's what she is, I think, a Technicolor blue that lights and flashes when no one is looking.''

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