I first saw the film last year and found it to be one of the more unusual films I had ever seen. No famous actors, clearly a small quiet indie film. I liked it but it had my head and heart whirling around.

Now I've just finished the book today and my emotions and thoughts are all over the place, as the book is a bit more graphic than the film. I have feelings of revulsion, pity, disgust, shame, sadness, empathy, anger, etc all rolled up in one.

David is clearly a broken and troubled person who I do not believe for a second is evil or intended harm, but his sense of inappropriateness and behavior while not purely pedophilic, is clearly circling that drain, and the damage done to both him and Tommie remains to be seen.

A book that will anger you, but if you are tender hearted and an empath, will pull those strings as well. ( )

This is a story of 54 year old David Lamb and his decision to take a troubled 11 year old girl, Tommie to a cabin in the mountains to show her what he thinks is a better, simpler life.

Reading this book, the narrator brings the reader so close to David Lamb and Tommie that you feel intimately connected to these characters as the story goes on because of this I really do feel it was David Lamb telling the story, perhaps as a way to justify his actions post-event. Before I read the book, the basic story sounded quite wrong and disturbing but as I read through the book, David’s motives seemed very sincere but ill-advised to me; he just wants to show a troubled Tommie a bit of happiness he feels she is missing out on at her city home. He is a very manipulative character, it feels like he also manipulates the reader as well as Tommie and everybody else in the book. I felt myself feeling as Tommie did, trusting this stranger one minute and then feeling not so sure the next.

I was left confused when I finished this book, there were so many unanswered questions for me. Was there a sexual motive in David taking Tommie? There was nothing implicitly implied from the story, maybe a few bits where it got a bit intimate but I felt it was always in a fatherly way. Of course the creepy thing about that is Tommie is not his daughter, and he took her without anybody knowing so it is inappropriate behaviour but it doesn’t feel that way from the way the story is told. The whole book feels like it explores a very grey area and it really makes you think differently from the black and white mind set you come with as you start to read this book.

I really thought this was a great book, I like stories that challenge the thoughts and perceptions of the reader, a book that makes you question yourself when you have finished reading it. It wasn’t too long either or bogged down with too much description, I finished it in a day.
( )

This is the chilling account of a calculated kidnapping of a vulnerable child by a pedophile who manages to convince himself that their "relationship" benefits the 11-year old girl. I am horrified that one reviewer described it as "a love story" if one thinks outside the box. Equally disturbing is the consideration that it might be a consensual situation. No child is able to make a determination of that magnitude, and the kidnapper is well aware of his culpability during their trip across the Midwest. A sequel to this book would be interesting because Tommie's life is inevitably affected and David Lamb may well be inclined to turn his attention to kidnapping another child. ( )

I had no idea what to expect from this book going in. It’s a thriller, but all emotional drama and definitely not action-based.

Middle-aged David Lamb ‘befriends’ an eleven-year-old girl and takes her on a camping trip without the consent or even knowledge or her parents.

The author builds suspense unrelentingly: is the inevitable truly inevitable? You be the judge of damage done.

Read this if: you enjoy a tightly drawn psychological drama that doesn’t involve espionage. 3½ stars ( )

Lamb
by Bonnie Nadzam
Published September 13, 2011 by Other Press

WHO: David Lamb, a deceitful, delusional, aging and divorced man who is currently in a relationship with a much younger co-worker…
WHAT: seduces an eleven-year old child off of a parking lot…
WHERE: in Chicago and takes her to a ramshackle cabin in Colorado…
WHEN: and over the course of twenty days…
WHY: tries to instil the idea of ultimate truth and beauty and love…
HOW: by showing her a world far different from where she came from and providing her with memories that will carry her through her life.

+ As I was completing the WHO and HOW entries above, I realized that Bonnie Nazdam has created an interesting construct of paradoxes that creates an underlying tension of unease beyond the obvious one derived from WHAT David Lamb is doing.
- Though not graphically explicit, one senses the sexual undertones and it’s quite stomach churning, especially if you are a parent. Let’s make no mistake about this, David Lamb is a pedophile and there is no way to feel about him other than revulsion. It is no special writing skill on the author’s part to invoke this sentiment as there is no other way to feel about a pedophile. The usage of pedophiles (as well as child killers, child abusers, etc) are cheap and lazy shots by writers because it limits the reader’s response. Nothing that Nadzam has done here tempers that and you really have to wonder why she even tried.

OTHER: I purchased a print copy of Lamb (by Bonnie Nadzam.) I apologize, but I do not remember who I purchased it from! I receive no monies, goods or services in exchange for reviewing the product and/or mentioning any of the persons or companies that are or may be implied in this post. ( )