{"id":19831,"date":"2025-05-19T07:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=19831"},"modified":"2025-05-18T22:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T02:27:10","slug":"review-pushing-daisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-pushing-daisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Pushing Daisy by Christopher O\u2019Halloran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/p>\n

Pushing Daisy<\/em> by Christopher O\u2019Halloran<\/strong><\/a>
\nLethe Press (May 23, 2025)<\/strong>
\nReviewed by\u00a0Elizabeth Broadbent<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Christopher O\u2019Halloran\u2019s <\/span>Pushing Daisy <\/span><\/i>has a simple premise: a grieving widower begins to suspect that his recently departed wife has returned from the great beyond. Roger Darling is the type of man women tell their girlfriends to dump immediately. He\u2019s bitter and manipulative, self-centered and cruel. Daisy martyred herself to assure his happiness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And we follow him around for three hundred-odd pages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pushing Daisy <\/span><\/i>is a masterclass in deploying an unlikeable protagonist. We meet Roger as he vomits at his wife\u2019s funeral. He\u2019s a grieving widower — self-centered, but grieving. O\u2019Halloran uses our impulse to sympathize with the bereaved to keep us reading about someone who embodies a garden-variety evil far worse for its banality. <\/span>This jackass, <\/span><\/i>we start to think. <\/span>I know this jackass. He thinks he\u2019s the center of the universe.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And because Roger does believe that, using a narrow point of view ensconces the reader in his delusion as Daisy\u2019s funeral ends and the long work of living begins. Roger\u2019s finances are unraveling. His in-laws won\u2019t leave him alone. His relationship with his brother, who seems like an unmitigated jackass, is deteriorating. Shamefully soon after Daisy\u2019s death, he begins a relationship with his neighbor, Mei. But as he starts to see glimpses of his dead wife, his character flaws become more and more apparent. Roger is a bad guy, and Daisy wants to prove it to the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every time we want to fling the book against the wall, O\u2019Halloran draws us back in. We sympathize with Roger\u2019s fear of being alone. We understand why he\u2019s seeking comfort with Mei. When he develops a relationship with one of Mei\u2019s older tenants, we think: Maybe he really is good. Maybe he\u2019s trying. But with a close POV, everything is filtered through the narrator. We buy into his delusions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This book parallels an abusive relationship. By the time we realize our guy is a morally bankrupt, even dangerous person, it\u2019s too late to get out. We\u2019re stuck with Roger, too invested in his narrative to shut the book and walk away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a fast-moving story, one that accurately portrays the wreckage death leaves in its wake — unpaid bills, empty rooms, piles of sympathy cards to acknowledge. Roger is alternately lonely and self-isolating, sad and angry (which we first chalk up to rage at Daisy\u2019s self-annihilation). But as her ghost creeps into the narrative, Roger\u2019s cracks begin to show. He can fake it. But Daisy won\u2019t let him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a feminine revenge tale, <\/span>Pushing Daisy<\/span><\/i> will leave you cold. Instead, the novel plumbs the depths of everyday cruelty, of how easily we give our hearts away to people with callous motivations. Roger never really <\/span>wants <\/span><\/i>to hurt people. But his stunningly self-centered choices do it for him. Crushingly obtuse, callously cruel, Roger feels too familiar. It\u2019s tough to make an audience stick around for that. O\u2019Halloran pulls it off with panache. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pushing Daisy by Christopher O\u2019Halloran Lethe Press (May 23, 2025) Reviewed by\u00a0Elizabeth Broadbent Christopher O\u2019Halloran\u2019s Pushing Daisy has a simple premise: a grieving widower begins to suspect that his recently departed wife has returned from the great beyond. Roger Darling is the type of man women tell their girlfriends to dump immediately. He\u2019s bitter and … Continue Reading! “Review: Pushing Daisy by Christopher O\u2019Halloran”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80],"tags":[3417,3165,3418,79],"class_list":["post-19831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-christopher-ohalloran","tag-elizabeth-broadbent","tag-pushing-daisy","tag-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\nReview: Pushing Daisy by Christopher O\u2019Halloran - 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