The Seduction of Water (Paperback)

It is the story of a woman, Iris Greenfeder; an almost writer, an almost professor, and an almost wife. An urge to write a story told to her nightly by her mother, leads to her quest to find out more about her late mother, who died in a hotel fire, registered under a different name. Under the pretenses of writing her mother's memiors and looking for her mother's lost manuscript, Iris becomes manager at the hotel she lived in as a child. She finds love in an unlikely place, as well as a renewed love for the hotel she grew up in as her parents worked in the hotel.

The writing in this book is beautiful. The imagery in both the fairy tale and the rest of the novel, jumps out of the book and paints a picture of the time and the place. The author's characters are real people- not "fairy-tale" people who live perfect lives. Every time I had to put the book down, I could not wait to be able to pick it back up again to finish it. It was a very satisfying story- and I will be sure to check out Goodman's first book- and her new book.

Iris Greenfeder, the protagonist and narrator, is a writer who by her own confession, never finishes anything. Instead of Ph.D. at the end of her name, she puts ABD for All But Dissertation. She got her master's but didn't finish her Ph.D. Her mother, the now deceased K. R. LaFleur, wrote two books in an unfinished trilogy about a fantasy world called Tirra Glynn. Iris's mother was quite famous and Iris sees an opportunity to complete her dissertation by writing a memoir of her mother's life. But first, she must uncover the circumstances of her mother's mysterious death. She sets out for the Catskills to spend the summer at the grand vacation hotel that has been in her family for many years. Over the summer, Iris hopes to find the missing manuscript of volume 3 of her mother's unfinished trilogy (egged on by her mother's infamous editor) and solve the mystery of her mother's death.

The question of whether a woman must sacrifice her art (and therefore, her self) to have a man in her life is a subtext throughout the story. It factors into the lives of Iris, her mother, Iris's maternal aunt, and the deceased mother of Phoebe Nix (yes, rhymes with Stevie Nicks), a poet of Sylvia Plath-like fame. Phoebe is a great character; I picture Parker Posie with a buzz cut. Phoebe's mother committed suicide at the height of her success. There's a connection between Iris and Phoebe's parents, and that's one of the mysteries of the story. Phoebe is certain that marriage and motherhood destroyed her artistic mother (her suicide has since been attributed to post-partum depression); Iris wonders if the same is true of her mother, although her mom died in a hotel fire on Coney Island. The legend of the Selkie is the folktale-metaphor throughout the story, showing what happens when women sacrifice their art and identity to please man.

I'm not terribly thrilled with Iris's retelling of the Selkie legend, which is placed at the beginning of each chapter as excerpts from her mother's work. But there's a heartbreakingly beautiful telling of the Japanese folktale, the Crane Wife on page 64. A Japanese rendering of the universal "wife must sacrifice all for her husband" theme, this tragic folktale will leave you in tears. It's thoughtfully woven in as a homework assignment from one of Iris's students. My thanks to Carol Goodman for sharing this wonderful folktale with me. If she included the whole Iris-as-writing-instructor part just to share this exquisite little piece with the reader, it was 100% worth it.

No sooner does the plot thicken in one area of the story than Goodman adds a new, unpredicted twist to generate greater intrigue and momentum. Not as atmospheric and closely knit as Lake of Dead Languages, but a respectable follow-up. Goodman hit her stride halfway through this book, and I hope she continues it with her next effort.