This was another of my holiday books, although why on earth I thought a novel about the abduction and abuse of a ten year old girl was appropriate fare for a nice summer holiday is beyond me now.

Suffice to say this a horrible book, but then by the very nature of its subject matter it has to be. On the plus side it’s also really well written, and it’s also quite moving in parts, well, if you can get beyond the misery and depravity that it’s centred on that is.

Forgetting Zoë tells the story of the psychopath Thurman Hayes, a victim himself of a brutal and hateful upbringing, and his abduction and subsequent eight year incarceration in a bunker below his house in the Arizona desert of a young girl, Zoë Nielsen, who he kidnaps when she’s on her way to school one day. It tells the story of how the abduction impacts and ultimately destroys Zoë’s mother, and of the impact, both immediate and long-term, of the abduction and abuse on Zoë herself.

Robinson’s novel takes in Stockholm Syndrome, domestic and sexual abuse, murder, torture, and all points in between. Thankfully though the writing is sparse, and so much of the worse stuff is left for the reader to guess at. Anything else and I suspect I’d have been denouncing this book as exploitative and sensationalist, but as it stands it’s not.

This novel is pretty unrelenting in its ugliness. It is a good book, but it’s definitely not a book to reach for if you’re after something life-affirming or if you want something to cheer you up.