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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Every aspect of this audiobook, from the enchanting music that marks the story's dramatic moments to the narrator's intimate delivery, draws listeners into Kidd's mystical world. Set on Egret Island, a fictional barrier island off the coast of South Carolina, the novel focuses on 42-year-old Jessie, a Southern housewife who embarks on a journey of self-discovery after learning that her mother, who's still distraught over her husband's death 33 years earlier, has cut off her own finger. Foss speaks with grace and tenderness, deftly capturing the myriad characters who enter Jessie's life, including her love interest, an introspective attorney turned monk who's about to take his finals vows. Perhaps the book's most important character, however, is the land itself, and Foss wisely gives as much weight to Kidd's detailed depictions of the island's lush flora and fauna as to the characters themselves, never rushing through the descriptions and always reading these passages with an appropriate note of reverence.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
From Booklist
Kidd's debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees (2000), is a bona fide publishing success story: it was on the New York Times paperback best-seller list for 81 weeks. Her follow-up, while quite different in plot, shares some themes with its predecessor. Forty-three-year old Jessie Sullivan is pulled out of her staid life in Atlanta with her husband and daughter, back to her childhood home on Egret Island after her mother, Nelle, cuts off one of her own fingers. Jessie has been uneasy with the island since her beloved father died when she was nine in a boating accident, a tragedy Jessie has always felt partially responsible for. At the behest of her mother's best friend, Jessie journeys back to the island to try to reconnect with the mother she's never been close to. Jessie wants to know what drove her obviously disturbed mother to sever her finger, and she thinks Father Dominic, one of the Benedictine monks who resides in a nearby monastery, might know more about her mother's state of mind. But it is another monk who claims Jessie's attention--handsome Brother Thomas, who ignites in Jessie a passion so intense it overwhelms her, leading her to question her marriage and rediscover her artistic drive. Kidd's second offering is just as gracefully written as her first and possesses an equally compelling story. It should appeal to the many readers who made her first novel a hit with book clubs. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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First Sentence
February 17, 1988, I opened my eyes and heard a procession of sounds: first the phone going off on the opposite side of the bed, rousing us at 5:04 A.M. to what could only be a calamity, then rain pummeling the roof of our old Victorian house, sluicing its sneaky way to the basement, and finally small puffs of air coming from Hugh's lower lip, each one perfectly timed, like a metronome. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
February 17, 1988, I opened my eyes and heard a procession of sounds: first the phone going off on the opposite side of the bed, rousing us at 5:04 A.M. to what could only be a calamity, then rain pummeling the roof of our old Victorian house, sluicing its sneaky way to the basement, and finally small puffs of air coming from Hugh's lower lip, each one perfectly timed, like a metronome. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Midlife in Spotlight,
This review is from: The Mermaid Chair (Hardcover)
"THE MERMAID CHAIR" is a far more mature toned novel than "SECRET LIFE OF BEES". A very different novel indeed. With much more melodrama, midlife crisis, and middle age introspection "THE MERMAID CHAIR" has much more in common with "LITTLE CHILDREN", "THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE" and "MY FRACTURED LIFE" than "SECRET LIFE OF BEES". This is not a bad thing, though. It is an exceptional book. I recommend it with great passion and full faith - IF you are reading it because you want to read a great new book by Sue Monk Kidd. IF, however, you plan to read it hoping it will be "SECRET LIFE OF BEES: THE NEXT GENERATION" - don't bother. Also recommended: "THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE" and "MY FRACTURED LIFE."
4.0 out of 5 stars
Have a seat,
This review is from: The Mermaid Chair (Hardcover)
When someone builds up a favorite author SO much, well, it's hard not to have impossibly high expectations. I think this book is very readable and good, and I enjoyed its mystical approach and other-worldly themes. But I agree with writers who said it didn't have quite the same magic as her first novel. Regardless, Sue Monk Kidd is a superb writer and I would read anything she writes. I'm still a major fan of her nonfiction. It was interesting to note how some of the midlife issues she wrote about in "Dance of the Dissident Daughter" (which I loved) and "When the Heart Waits" (which I also loved) were given new wings in this fictional approach. I really, really liked this book. You just can't expect it to be the same as SECRET LIFE OF BEES. Must also recommend another great little book that was recommended to me via Amazon, and that is "Children's Corner" by Jackson McCrae. VERY funny, sad, moving, and above all, well done.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mesmerizing!,
By Janice (Lincoln, NE) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Mermaid Chair (Hardcover)
Sue Monk Kidd's "The Mermaid Chair" revolves around Jessie, a stay at home mom, who felt that she was drifting apart from Hugh, her husband of 20 years and was just uncontented in general. One day, she received a call that her mother had intentionally cut off one of her fingers and she needed to return to Egret Island, in South Carolina to help her. Egret Island was a place that Jessie spent most of her childhood and was also the place that she sworn to escape when she was an adult. This was because Jessie carried the burden of guilt that she played a part in the death of her beloved father in an accident. However, she needed to go home and it was her first day there that she felt in love with a monk named Brother Thomas. In Egret Island, it was a place that she could escape from her husband but at the same time, she became more confused with her relationship with Brother Thomas as well as with her mother, feeling that there was something more to her violent act of cutting off her finger. In essence, Jessie had to deal with understanding and accepting the past as well as making choices for her future. "The Mermaid Chair," deals with themes such as love, betrayal, friendship among the characters. Sue Monk Kidd did a fantastic job of making her characters seemed so real and you can't but help feel that you know each of them personally. The main focus of this book was mostly about the relationships between the characters and the choices that had to make. The setting of this book was quite interesting as the author provided a lot of information on the Lowcountry culture and lifestyles. Overall, I think this is a great read and would highly recommend it for everyone who wants a thought-provoking read. But try it for yourself! Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Sue Monk Kidd, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, a funny, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about
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