In the necessary and uncomfortable places where Rene Denfeld locates her haunting fiction, the lines between victim and perpetrator can be painfully blurry...Denfeld insists that urgent stories exist on the extreme margins of our lives, especially when they depict those whom most of society would prefer to erase forever. Adding a tincture of the fantastical into a beaker of reality, Denfeld’s writing swirls and darkens; yet, just as often, tragedy blends and brightens with optimism … What’s here is the unmistakable evidence of harm, as well as the endeavor to understand how and why it recurs. For Denfeld, and for her readers, questions of innocence and guilt aren’t limited to a courtroom or a prison … This exquisite, gracefully imagined novel brings nuanced empathy to that tragic zone in which victims of pedophilia can grow up to become perpetrators as adults.
This novel reads like poetry paced as a thriller, and if Madison’s story isn’t hard enough to take, Naomi also takes the case of a missing baby belonging to a young autistic woman. Additionally, Jerome is in love with Naomi, and she’s in love with Jerome, but something is holding her back from plunging ahead … This is as much Naomi’s story as it is Madison’s, and for all the awfulness and the pain, it’s ultimately a story of hope that will transform you if you let it. Never graphic, Denfeld’s lyrical writing mines the beauty found in the most harrowing of situations and affirms the human spirit and will to survive.
...a harrowing story about a young girl living in captivity and the one woman who could possibly find her and bring her home … Naomi’s personal journey from foster child to adulthood parallels her search for Madison. As Naomi’s fears and sources of determination come to light, the narrative also dips into Madison’s mind, allowing readers to experience her terrifying ordeal at the hands of her captor, known only as Mr. B. Both narratives are expertly intertwined into a deeply moving story of survival and hope … The Child Finder is a chillingly good read.
The ingredients of many an excellent crime novel have been conjured solely from a writer’s vivid imagination, but Rene Denfeld — while clearly not lacking keen imaginative facilities — has drawn on elements of her own life for her highly persuasive new tale, The Child Finder. The theme in this, the author’s second novel, is child abuse … [Denfeld] treats it in an innovative fashion and — perhaps more importantly — in a responsible way … Her real grip is in the characterisation of her troubled heroine, with whose concerns the reader becomes inextricably involved. Admittedly, a certain attention is required to keep up with the variety of voices that Denfeld employs here, but it is worth the effort.
Using multiple voices, Denfeld takes an innovative approach to dealing with the pain of trauma, taking moments of darkness and frailty and probing them in heartbreaking, surprising ways. Naomi is a broken but ethical protagonist who always holds out hope: for the children yet to be found, the adults searching for missing loved ones, and herself as she tries to overcome past traumas. The conclusion will leave readers breathless.
Aside from a clumsy subplot about Naomi searching for a baby from an impoverished community, Denfeld keeps the pacing quick as readers rush to discover Madison’s fate. While Denfeld’s message is meant to be redemptive—no loved child will ever be forgotten—make no mistake: this is also a book that is frankly about the sexual abuse of children. And though Denfeld is no doubt trying to explore the psychological realities of this abuse, and of conditions like Stockholm syndrome, her tendency toward florid writing can make her depiction feel romanticized and takes the book at times from disquieting into downright unpalatable.
