Daughter of Darkness (novel)

'Daughter of Darkness' is a 1973 psychological thriller written by Jan and Robert Lowell, a husband and wife who use the joint pseudonym J.R. Lowell.^[1]

Plot

A young woman named Willamina "Willie" Connolly is the daughter of a prosperous New York couple, editor Matt Connolly and his wife Willamina, an Irish concert pianist. Willie is a child prodigy with an extremely high IQ. Her parents believe her to be a happy, contented child, but this is a carefully contrived mask. Her primary motivation is independence; she detests anyone making decisions for her, especially based on her age or appearance. Her very name, Willamina Junior, made her feel like a bad carbon copy, until she discovered Gertrude Stein's The World Is Round and began to call herself Willie.

She has made a thorough study of anthropology and is an accomplished practitioner of witchcraft and sympathetic magic. Her doll collection is actually an array of poppets which she uses to curse those who displease her. This backfires on her when one of her spells leads to her mother's death. Willie's remorse and her wish to see her father happy again develops over the years into incestuous desire, although Willie herself does not realize it.

Sources

Willie's incantation "Everything that is won't be/ Everything that isn't will be" is from Charles Fort's Book of the Damned.^[2] Her sickness-causing chant "A big pain a little pain/ A small pain a great pain" is from Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today by William Seabrook.^[3]

References

1. ^ Lowell, J.R., Daughter of Darkness. G.K. Hall, 1973, subsequently reprinted by Corgi Children's in 1975.
2. ^ Fort, Charles, The Book of the Damned (Boni and Liveright, 1919), p. 8.
3. ^ Seabrook, William, Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1940), p. 32.