Minding Children
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Josephine has deep brown eyes that seem to get warmer the deeper you stare into them. She may not be bright but she does appear kind, and kids take to her as quickly as their parents. Wall’s portrait of a dangerously disturbed young woman is more complex than a quick shock to parents nervous about their child-minding arrangements: it shows that Josephine is as much victim as abuser. Her childhood warped by a drunken mother and the guilt-ridden Catholicism of an aunt, Josephine plays out notions of goodness on her charges. Wall nods to Hitchcock, portrays an Ireland on the cusp of change and writes convincingly from a female perspective.