I learned about Meredith Hambrock’s novel, She’s a Lamb!, from my colleague Haley, who stopped me in the kitchen one day and said, “I’m reading a book you would love. It’s super weird, and it’s about musical theater.”
Say no more, I thought. Sign. Me. Up.
Then I read the blurb from Library Journal: “For readers who enjoy dark, uncomfortable humor and tales of mental spiraling.”
Seriously, was this novel written just for me?
She’s a Lamb! brings us Jessamyn St. Germain, a wanna-be Broadway star who works as an usher at a Vancouver regional theater and occasionally stars as a tired mom in detergent commercials. She auditions for the role of Maria in a performance of The Sound of Music, and is instead cast as child-minder for the band of youngsters playing the Von Trapp children. Jessamyn believes her time in the spotlight is coming. She’s convinced she’s bound for a Tony Award, if she can just catch a break. But Jessamyn, dear readers, is delusional.
In Jessamyn, we get one of the most despicable narrators since R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface, and one of the creepiest since Jade Song’s Chlorine. She’s a sociopath with visions of edelweiss, and her musical theater dreams soon turn nightmarish. Let’s just say she gives new meaning to the term, “Break a leg.”
This dark, disturbing thriller opens strong and builds to a surprising and endlessly discussable curtain call. It won’t be for everyone, certainly, but this reader gives it a hearty, if cringeworthy, standing ovation.
