The Mermaid Chair

Southern Living Selects

The Mermaid Chair BY SUE MONK KIDD (VIKING, $24.95)

Fans of this author will naturally crave a repeat of the spiritual coming-of-age story she told in The Secret Life of Bees. Similar themes operate in this latest offering, though Atlanta housewife Jessie Sullivan, a tepid artist, is no child. Long married to Hugh, who deeply loves her, Jessie has just sent their only child off to college. Life seems perfect, but at age 42, she senses she has treated her days as if they were "the size of little beads that passed without passion through my fingers."

So she is strangely glad when she must rush home to Egret Island, South Carolina, despite the macabre reason: Her ultrareligious mother has purposefully maimed herself. Jessie, as much as her mother, seeks healing on the lush barrier island. At first, she finds solace in the familiar aspects of the place, especially a fabled chair, dedicated to a mermaid-turned-saint, which draws tourists to the island's Benedictine monastery. Then Jessie dives headlong into the unfamiliar-unraveling details of her father's death years ago, revealing the reasons for her mother's breakdown, and searching for fulfillment through forbidden love. -NANCY DORMAN-HICKSON

© 2005 Southern Progress Corporation Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.