Strange Child by Gregory Daily

Gregory Daily

Author

Strange Child

Marvin Johnson was an influential author before his daughter was murdered nearly three decades ago, and now with the death of his wife, he is contemplating suicide. Until Samantha Wilkins, a homeless 16-year-old, invades Murphy's sheltered existence in an impoverished neighborhood in Boston and forces him to face parts of his past he would rather forget. Known as the neighborhood recluse, Marvin is a man whose mystery and eccentricity border on the mythical, especially when he begins talking to a small child no one else can see. When Samantha—a quiet girl looking for her mother and a way back to her life––breaks into his apartment and leaves something behind important to her, an unlikely friendship emerges. That friendship is challenged, however, when he finds out that she has been lying to him and stealing from him. When a psychopathic police officer becomes infatuated with Samantha and begins stalking her, Marvin must face his past and decide if he will withdraw back into his safe and private world or try to protect her the way he was unable to protect his own daughter.

Reviews

Daily’s inspirational novel of loss, redemption, and Christian faith centers on a Boston man and the surprising connections he makes with unexpected souls—and, quite possibly, the divine. Marvin Johnson, 87, loses his wife and decides to end his own life, purchasing a gun from a pawn shop. While returning home, he finds a badly hurt child on the pavement and carries him home, collapsing due to the strain. Meanwhile, teenager Savannah/Samantha Wilkins, living out of her car and desperate for money, breaks into Marvin’s house. Unwilling to leave an unconscious Marvin in the bathroom, she calls emergency services before escaping with valuables. Unknown to her, a creepy cop, both abuser and abused, is stalking her. As these three lives unravel, the presence of the strange child in Marvin’s affects him in surprising ways.

Daily’s language is marvelously empathetic and draws the reader into the lives of the three major characters. The reader feels the helpless, debilitating misery—of the unhoused, of children of abusive fathers, of bereaved spouses and parents. The tension builds and the pacing stays taut up for much of the novel, up until the point where Marvin and the child, Michael, have a conversation in which the child quotes from scripture, thereby stepping out of a realist yet spiritual mode and into something more miraculous, as the “strange” child begins to feel very familiar (fast-healing wounds, frail body, luminous skin, fine, silky, golden hair).

Readers’ response to these developments, of course, might be a matter of faith. Daily’s portraiture of contemporary characters feeling for meaning in their lives is moving, and the possibility of Marvin healing, through the care and protection of a child, is so rich that readers invested in that story may resist the miracles and visions to come. Still, this empathetic and well-written novel about homelessness and coping with loss will strike a chord with believers.

Takeaway: This empathetic Christian novel centers on grief, the unhoused, and a miracle baby.

Great for fans of: Francine Rivers’s The Scarlet Thread, Karen Kingsbury’s Found.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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