Lost Lambs Review: A Brilliantly Plotted Satire for Our Times
In an era dominated by desperate apocalypticism and rampant conspiracy theories, making the comic novel succeed presents a rich yet tricky challenge. Madeline Cash, in her sparkling debut Lost Lambs, has discovered that a potent blend of tenderness and sharp satire might be precisely what our contemporary moment demands. This witty, quickfire novel about the dysfunctional Flynn family offers both laughter and heart, proving itself as a timely literary intervention.
A Family in Disarray: The Flynns' Quirky World
The Flynn family finds themselves in a spectacular mess, residing in a small American town that Cash renders with vivid, typographical playfulness. The narrative buzzes with clever lists and is infested by the very gnats that plague their local church, appearing in delightful misspellings like "explagnation" and "extermignation."
Catherine and Bud Flynn once shared passionate beginnings—he as a young rock star, she as an aspiring artist. Decades later, they've accumulated three daughters and an abundance of Tupperware, their spark diminished. Catherine finds herself drawn to Jim, an amateur artist who offers "the youthful comfort of being understood," rekindling her artistic ambitions and prompting nude self-portraits throughout their home alongside declarations of an open marriage. Unbeknownst to her, Jim maintains a peculiar collection of pottery vaginas in his basement, each representing a significant life touchpoint.
Their daughters each navigate unique struggles. Thirteen-year-old Harper, a child genius fluent in six self-taught languages, remains "mythically bored" and faces regular school suspensions. Middle child Louise endures the "plight of the middle child," trapped in what she perceives as "a prison of her own mundanity." Her escape arrives through yourstruly, an online lover who advises investing in explosive-making equipment. Seventeen-year-old Abigail, the family beauty, adopts a pragmatic approach to romance, using makeup as a clear signal to potential suitors about her intentions.
Brilliant Plotting: Church, Commerce and Conspiracy
Cash demonstrates exceptional skill in plotting, an often underrated literary art. The narrative engine combines forces of church and commerce, with God and the town's megalomaniac billionaire shipping magnate, Paul Alabaster, competing for the Flynns' souls.
God's influence comes mediated through Miss Winkle, the local do-gooder who runs the "Lost Lambs" support group that a depressed Bud attends. Their awkward, tea-splashed encounter leads to "wholesome and arousing" sex, providing Bud with something his dissatisfied marriage cannot. This experience inspires Bud's clumsy yet noble attempt at self-improvement, bringing him into direct conflict with his employer, Paul Alabaster.
The plot thickens through multiple investigations. Bored genius Harper discovers discrepancies in Alabaster's shipping accounts. Bud, newly committed to righteousness, begins asking uncomfortable questions. Abigail's boyfriend, War Crimes Wes—a former soldier turned private security operative—grows suspicious when Abigail receives a singular female invitation to Alabaster's high-security party. Meanwhile, Abigail's best friend Tibet, a conspiracy theory addict, speculates about Alabaster's vampiric pursuits of eternal youth.
Themes of Truth, Goodness and Collective Knowledge
The novel's moral compass finds expression through two unlikely priestesses: Miss Winkle and Tibet. Miss Winkle presents an interestingly unfashionable vision of goodness, challenging Bud's early question to Harper: "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" By the novel's conclusion, Miss Winkle reveals that true happiness cannot exist without rightness, a lesson the entire extended family gradually learns.
Tibet complements this with her theories about new models of pooled knowledge. Convinced that individuals experience "only a tiny fraction of reality," she advocates for collective truth-seeking—an approach that oddly vindicates online conspiracy theories while the novel itself offers its own vision of communal understanding.
A Virtuosic Voice for Contemporary Fiction
Cash's virtuosic wit enables her to warm readers' hearts while simultaneously satirising modern absurdities. Though the plot occasionally dominates the novel's atmosphere and the typographical gnats might verge on the winsome, Lost Lambs arrives as a particularly relevant work. In an age where conspiracy theorists prove disturbingly right as often as they're wrong, and where old-fashioned tenderness and laughter feel increasingly necessary, Cash emerges as a happy, energising new voice in fiction.
This tender satire of a dysfunctional American family's search for moral guidance delivers precisely what our times need—clever comedy with genuine heart, brilliant plotting, and thoughtful commentary on truth, goodness, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of a confusing world.
