Our Take

Barbara Comyns crafts something truly singular in The Vet's Daughter: a novel that marries shocking domestic realism with elements of magical realism and gothic horror. Originally published in 1959 and rediscovered by NYRB Classics, this slender but powerful book tells its harrowing story through Alice's matter-of-fact narration, creating an unsettling contrast between her innocent voice and the horrors she endures. Comyns' prose is deceptively simple, employing what Graham Greene praised as an "innocent eye" that observes terrible things with childlike directness, making the violence and exploitation all the more disturbing. The novel's exploration of domestic abuse, female powerlessness, and trauma-induced dissociation feels startlingly modern, while its visionary elements give Alice's story a mythic, almost fairy-tale quality. Readers who appreciate the Southern Gothic darkness of Flannery O'Connor, the psychological intensity of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, or the surreal domestic nightmares in Carmen Maria Machado's work will find much to admire here. This is a neglected masterpiece that deserves its growing cult following—a brief but unforgettable exploration of how the oppressed find power, however dangerous that power may prove.