Every day as I sat down to write Odd Child Out, I thought about how crucial the quality of empathy is when writing fiction. Treating your characters with respect and humanity is essential to developing insight into their complexities, and this felt especially important as I wrote about the Mahad family, whose life experience is the furthest removed from my own or any characters I’ve written about before, and was therefore the most challenging to imagine. I hope I’ve done them and my other characters justice. You as reader will be the judge of that.
And if empathy is an important tool for writers, I firmly believe it should guide us in life also. In our messy modern-day society, it feels essential.
My son is well now. He is thriving. I shall always remember the mother and child in Donatello’s sculpture and how they helped me through the dark days.
Questions for Discussion
1. Odd Child Out paints a picture of the horrors refugees face in their native countries and the challenges they encounter when entering a new community. Has reading this book given you a new perspective on the struggles of refugees?
2. Even though Noah and Abdi came from entirely different worlds, they developed an extremely deep and trusting friendship. What do you think each boy needed from the other that made them so close?
3. Abdi was raised in the UK, yet his Somali heritage plays a strong role in how others perceive him and his actions. Discuss the roles of race, prejudice, and privilege during the investigation.
4. The Mahads and the Sadlers each try to protect their son in their own ways. Do you feel their actions were justified? When, if ever, do you think you should cease protecting someone you love?
5. Noah wanted to explore and experience the world before his sickness took him. If you were ill, what would your bucket list be?
6. Edward Sadler knows he isn’t a perfect person. Did your feelings about him change as the novel progressed?
7. Detective Inspector Jim Clemo is tackling his own personal demons when he is brought onto the Noah Sadler case. How do you think Clemo’s personal and professional lives affected each other?
8. Maryam, Nur, and Sofia each had secrets to keep about their pasts. Do you think they were right to bury their history as they did, or should they have been more open with Abdi? What would you have done in their situation?
9. The man with the cleft palate is a figure of mystery for most of the novel. Did you suspect who he was? Were you satisfied with his fate at the end of the novel?
10. There are several cases of the media presenting partial or skewed narratives throughout the novel, such as Edward Sadler’s exhibition and Emma Zhang’s article. Do you think the media can ever be completely nonpartisan? Do you think the media has any obligations to its subject when exposing a story?
11. Were you surprised by the truth of what really happened to Noah? Do you think anyone is still to blame for Noah’s untimely death?
12. What do you think is the significance of the title Odd Child Out?
Read On
More from Gilly Macmillan
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“A wonderfully addictive book with virtuoso plotting and characters—for anyone who loved Girl on the Train, it’s a must-read.”
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Tonight Zoe is giving a recital that Maria has been planning for months. It needs to be the performance of her life. But instead, by the end of the evening, Maria is dead.
In the aftermath, everyone—police, family, Zoe’s former solicitor, and Zoe herself—tries to piece together what happened. But as Zoe knows all too well, the truth is rarely straightforward, and the closer we are to someone, the less we may see.
WHAT SHE KNEW
In her New York Times bestselling debut, Gilly Macmillan explores a mother’s search for her missing son, weaving a taut psychological thriller as gripping and skillful as The Girl on the Train and The Guilty One.
In a heartbeat, everything changes . . .
Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry—until Ben vanishes.
Police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from Rachel’s newly married ex-husband to her mother-of-the-year sister. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel, too, and the public’s attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion.
As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that nothing is quite as she imagined it to be, not even her own judgment. And the greatest dangers may lie not in the anonymous strangers of every parent’s nightmares, but behind the familiar smiles of those she trusts the most.
Where is Ben? The clock is ticking . . .
Also by Gilly Macmillan
The Perfect Girl
What She Knew
Credits
Cover design by Elsie Lyons
Cover photographs: © Tim Robinson / Arcangel; © Shutterstock (details)
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ODD CHILD OUT. Copyright © 2017 by Gilly Macmillan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition October 2017 ISBN 978-0-06-247685-2
ISBN 978-0-06-247682-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-06-274047-2 (international trade paperback edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-269783-7 (hardcover library edition)
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