The darker stories of recent years to emerge from this island have become internationally known. American-based Korelitz's novel, The Sabbathday River, was provoked by the Kerry Babies tragedy; "that strange Irish case", as she refers to it in her acknowledgements. This is the fictional story of the separate discoveries of two recently-born babies, found dead in 1985 in the small community of Goddard, New Hampshire. Heather Pratt is a young Goddard girl, who has had a recent affair with a married man - the father of her 14-month-old daughter.
Heather is accused of both murders. Thereafter, the novel narrates - with considerably well-maintained tension, given that it runs to 500 pages - her arrest and subsequent trial.
The Sabbathday River is a spooky novel about responsibilities and lack of same, and about the abuse of power. It examines, with the thoroughness of a forensic report, the reactions of a small community to hosting an unpopular unmarried mother accused of a double case of mysterious infanticide.
Korelitz has constructed an uncomfortably interesting plot, and created a set of mainly unlikeable characters who none the less command attention until the very end.
