Raising a teen-age daughter must be terrifying, especially for any father who remembers what teenage boys can be like.
Matt Haig explores this terror in his 2008 novel The Possession if Mr. Cave. Terrence Cave is a dealer in antiques whose wife was killed and then his son commits suicide early in this novel. And now Terrence must raise the boy's twin sister, Byrony, who is 15 and beautiful, by himself — or with the help of his mother-in-law, who always takes the side of the rebellious daughter.As if this situation would not be intimidating enough for any committed father, Haig adds a complication, The title refers to "possession," and Terrance comes to believe he is possessed by the spirit of his son, who was always jealous of Byrony. Now, Terrance believes, Reuben is trying to harm her through him.
Increasingly the father becomes more desperate, especially as Byrony establishes a serious relationship with a boy judged unworthy of her.
Haig's novel begins with one tragedy, and every reader will know the story is moving headlong toward another one. For this reader, at least, just the initial situation was frightening enough.