Minding Children

ISBN: 0340751908 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton 16/8/2001
£6.99 RRP Paperback

Irish teenager Josephine works as a childminder, but what the families who hire her don't realise is that her own childhood, with a drunken single mother and her various unsavoury boyfriends, has left a terrible legacy. The first victims are Dr and Mrs Casey, who hire thirteen year old Josephine to live in and help look after their baby girl, leading to divorce and a near-fatal illness. She then moves on to an American couple, who watch the sunny personality of their young son inexplicably darken before tragedy strikes. A convincing and disturbing portrait of a mind damaged by the experiences of childhood, which succeeds in making Josephine at once sympathetic and frightening.

'Taut as a thriller, scarifying as a horror story, but finely written and eerily evocative ... a book you won't forget in a hurry'

'I enjoyed MINDING CHILDREN enormously, he is such a writer - lyrical and cruel and bold and with metaphors to die for'

'Wall's portrait of Josephine is utterly convincing...this is an intimate tale, well told, that draws the reader into a world both familiar and frightening.'

'[A] haunting, compelling novel...Wall has succeeded in producing a rare thing: a page-turning work of literary fiction.'

Rights: USA