Loosely based on the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, and deeply rooted in American communities’ apathy and malice for its imperfect people, ON THE SAVAGE SIDE illustrates how coping and uplifting can intertwine.

In Chillicothe, Ohio, in the late 20th century, the town’s disregard and resentment of lower socioeconomic status impacts the very people who live there. Coping can get somebody through --- or just around --- trauma. But when those who are ostracized, scorned and forgotten are reminded of their worth, in spite of ignorance and hate, that’s uplifting. That’s a way beyond trauma.

This is the heart of Tiffany McDaniel’s heartbreaking novel.

Identical twins Arcade and Daffodil Doggs cope with their depressing childhood through whimsical tales of nature and fantasies of a better life. Early on, they live with Mamaw Milkweed, their maternal grandmother. A very spiritual and kind woman, she lays the sisters’ framework for coping and uplifting. She tells them tales of nature’s femininity and how women are connected to nature despite men’s abuse of women and nature. “The rain is a woman explaining time… The grass is one growing through the years…” Milkweed explains, adding that Chillicothe’s roads must’ve been built on a woman because “only a woman’s scars are strong enough to bear something driving over them, again and again.” But her greatest impact on them is how to push the savage side of life into the beautiful side, fueled by imagination and hope.

"Tiffany McDaniel weaves narrative time expertly, taking readers back and forth from the girls’ childhood to young adulthood, from specific scenes to general patterns, from misery to hope."

The girls’ parents, Adelyn and Flood, come back into their lives when they’re four with promises of sobriety and a stable home. Arcade and Daffodil soon become experts in coping, in turning the savage side beautiful. They draw and believe in the imaginary birthday cakes and parties they never had, and the toys they once had before their parents needed heroin money. One night, Adelyn, who works as a prostitute after Flood’s fatal overdose, is attacked by a client. Arcade is forced to stab the man with an arrowhead she had just unearthed, but she and Daffodil pretend that something pleasant happened instead.

Though Arcade resents her parents for abusing and neglecting her, she mourns how Chillicothe will only ever see her family as worthless junkies. Adelyn can draw buildings extraordinarily and could’ve been an architect. Their aunt Clover can sing well and is fascinated by the sights the world has to offer. Flood, who was introduced to opium so he could stay awake in the army, loved his daughters, telling tales of how the smoke clouds from Chillicothe’s paper mill are actually dust kicked up by horses beneath the town. But Chillicothe only sees the unhealthy coping mechanisms these people enlist in their less socioeconomically stable lives. Empathy, and any chance someone might have to change, is impossible; in Chillicothe, “junkies” and “whores” --- the Doggs’ “kind” --- are wholly responsible for their trauma.

After one of Adelyn’s clients sexually assaults Arcade and Daffodil --- while they’re not even 10 yet --- Arcade runs away with Daffodil, and they live with a man named John. Daffodil, a lover of water and swimming, yearns to be on a swim team, and the twins manage to finagle the funds from John. Though kind enough to take them in, he is a heavy alcoholic and, like their mother, doesn’t hide this savage side of his life from them. During a booze-induced episode of self-loathing, Arcade attempts to console John in the way Milkweed taught her. She instructs him to play an imaginary violin, like how he once dreamt of playing in an orchestra, and to believe it’s real. She wants him to hope.

John disappears soon after, and though the twins move back in the house where abusive men and used needles are household decorations, swimming scholarships are on Daffodil’s horizon. But after years of ignoring the savage side of her life, she can’t cope with only legends and imaginary lives. She feels more appreciated and protected by heroin than hope. Her scholarship talks soon fade. Arcade also chooses to get addicted because she believes Daffodil can’t get sober without her.

At 20, Arcade and Daffodil are prostitutes and addicted to heroin. They help each other and fellow prostitutes cope with chronic abuse, scorn and neglect. The necessity of coping is multiplied when missing prostitutes don’t concern Chillicothe. When their naked and battered bodies are found floating in the river, the town and its police force chalk it up to a fix gone bad. With her friends despondent over these murders and the apathy within their community, Arcade helps them cope through fantasy, uplifting them with hope and love.

The events, developments and ending of ON THE SAVAGE SIDE are mostly savage. Depressing. The novel’s story and people --- its heart --- fight to turn the savage side beautiful, sometimes unhealthily with heroin, but they learn to uplift one another. Tiffany McDaniel weaves narrative time expertly, taking readers back and forth from the girls’ childhood to young adulthood, from specific scenes to general patterns, from misery to hope.