Starting at a fresh school can always be daunting, noting who to steer clear of, who to befriend and deciding on the right attire – and that’s just for the parents. As Sara’s daughter Lexie embarks on her journey at a new schooling institution in Dublin, Sara tries to make this transition smoother by becoming friends with the well-liked mothers. However, integrating in the Beautiful Mothers’ coffee mornings proves to be a harder task than penetrating a covert spy group.
When the social monarch Vanessa suddenly requires someone to babysit her daughter Polly, Sara grasps the chance. Yet calamity occurs when Polly is found motionless in Sara’s back garden. This is the initial set up for Irish anaesthetist Clara Dillon’s first novel. From this nerve-racking beginning, the narrative flips back in time, as Sara recounts the series of events leading to this catastrophe.
The story is conveyed in the second person, where Sara directly engages with her husband Adam. Adam is juggling commuting between Dublin and their previous residence in London, whilst establishing his new venture. This is a challenging literary technique, which Dillon masters perfectly, heightening the reader’s feeling of doubt and anxiety. Dillon presents Sara as an unreliable narrator leaving readers to decipher whether she is psychologically damaged and just imagining things, or if her fears about what seems to be transpiring are logical.
Simultaneously, fragments of Adam’s London narrative are interspersed within the primary plot, strewing the reader’s allegiances and spinning the tension dial higher. Parts of the story become almost physically distressing due to the intense suspense, and I found myself unable to unwind until I reached the horrifying yet paradoxically intriguing ending. Consequently, I devoured it in one go. It put me in mind of Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal, mixed with the writing style of Harlan Coben and elements of Patricia Highsmith.
The Playdate is utterly engrossing and incredibly entertaining, yet it poses some complicated questions such as how far a parent will go to safeguard their child or just how influential is the harm caused by bullies and cliques?
What differentiates this novel from a multitude of school-gate thriller novels is its strikingly memorable main character, Sara. Chilling, undecided, detached from morality yet appealing, she playfully overturns our assumptions concerning femininity and motherhood, leaving you to ponder before accepting your upcoming play date.