The Mermaid Chair | Sue Monk Kidd | Feminine Voice for Mid-life choices

The Mermaid Chair | Sue Monk Kidd | The Mermaid Chair: The Seat of Questions of Ethics

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The Mermaid Chair

	The Mermaid Chair Sue Monk Kidd Penguin Audio, 2005 average customer review:based on 568 reviews view larger image
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Feminine Voice for Mid-life choices

I think Sue Monk Kidd has written a truthful account about the lives that women conceal from themselves. It is a courageous and successful publication of how women can lose themselves in their family roles. Perhaps the uncomfortable truth Kidd writes about is that even in the "curbside appeal" of a marriage, one person can be drowning. Jessie made decisions to stay at home and make art in a studio, but as she lost her sense of self, her art diminished...as she later says even her art was in a box, she was in a box. How many of us have ever realized that we had made decisions that ultimately led us to be boxed in? Then what? You stay there or fight your way out. How many women have been "glossed" over by a doting husband? Ignored or diminished by a loving condescension? Jessie husband Hugh recognizes that he has contributed to her feelings of diminishment. Sue Monk Kidd has written a story about a woman who has lost herself, and eventually comes to understand that she had never truly known herself apart from her father, her husband or her lover. It is a story about how TRUTH brings you to your knees and allows you to build something real. It's not a story about a woman who commits adultery with an almost monk--it is about how an emotionally diminished woman finds herself wrapped in her mother's pain, her father's death and her own longing to find her place in the real world.Waiting for Odysseus

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The Mermaid Chair: The Seat of Questions of Ethics

The story begins with Jesse Sullivan returning home to Egret Island to care for her aging mother who had just purposefully cut off her finger. Discovering that her mother had done this as part of a mysterious ritual, Jesse ultimately discovers secrets about her family's past, as well as about what she wants from her own life. The Island, described in detail as if it were a main character itself, is crucial and effective to the presentation of characters and ideas. The Mermaid Chair, also central to the plot of this story, as well as to the small town, is discovered to have been vital in Jesse's own family's history. The "Thorn Birds"- style subplot adds an enjoyable romance to the story. Ms Kidd combines mysticism and legend to give this story an eerie tone. This is a wonderful story which questions the importance of ethics when they conflict with saving others.

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Not as good as bees...

I thoroughly enjoyed Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, so I was anxious to read The Mermaid Chair. This book is nowhere near the quality of The Secret Life.

The Mermaid Chair opens when Jessie Sullivan receives an early morning phone call that her mother has cut off one of her fingers. Sullivan and her mom have a difficult relationship at best, and it has been years since Sullivan visited her on Egret Island (an imaginary island outside of Charleston, SC). But she now has no choice but to return to Egret Island and deal with her religious-fanatic mom, Nelle. In the process, she must deal with the secrets that her mother and friends have been hiding from Sullivan. These secrets are most probably responsible for Nelle's mental instability as well as Sullivan's guilt about her childhood. She also falls in love with Brother Thomas, a monk on the island (Sullivan is married with a college-aged daughter). Overall, I couldn't develop much sympathy or affection for any Kidd's characters, except for Sullivan's saintly husband, Hugh. Some parts of The Mermaid Chair were excellent, including Kidd's descriptions of the low country of South Carolina. However, the ending was very predictable and the reader just knows what will happen.

The Mermaid Chair is a good beach book--especially if you're near Charleston, SC. But if you're looking for great literature, you'll need to look elsewhere.

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