Sue Monk Kidd. (2006). The Mermaid Chair. Penguin Publishing Group.

Sue Monk Kidd. 2006. The Mermaid Chair. Penguin Publishing Group.

Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair. Penguin Publishing Group, 2006.

Sue Monk Kidd. The Mermaid Chair. Penguin Publishing Group, 2006.

OverDrive Product Record

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1. • value: family
2. • value: literary fiction
3. • value: Myth
4. • value: romance
5. • value: Fiction
6. • value: novels
7. • value: marriage
8. • value: women
9. • value: Southern fiction
10. • value: Romance Novel
11. • value: Mermaids
12. • value: mermaid
13. • value: South Carolina
14. • value: unhappy marriage
15. • value: Saints
16. • value: American South
17. • value: romance books
18. • value: romance novels
19. • value: sue monk kidd
20. • value: books for women
21. • value: The Invention of Wings
22. • value: The Secret Life of Bees
23. • value: mothers day gifts
24. • value: mom gifts
25. • value: gifts for mom
26. • value: gifts for women
27. • value: gifts for her
28. • value: mermaid books
29. • value: mermaid book
30. • value: good books for women
31. • value: realistic fiction books
32. • value: secret life of bees
33. • value: books for women best sellers
34. • value: mother daughter gifts

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1. • role: Author
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publishDate

2006-03-07T00:00:00-05:00

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title

The Mermaid Chair

fullDescription

A transcendent tale of a woman's self-discovery—the New York Times–bestselling second work of fiction by the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings
Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.
When Jessie Sullivan is summoned home to the island to cope with her eccentric mother’s seemingly inexplicable behavior, she is living a conventional life with her husband, Hugh, a life “molded to the smallest space possible.” Jessie loves Hugh, but once on the island, she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk about to take his final vows. Amid a rich community of unforgettable island women and the exotic beauty of marshlands, tidal creeks, and majestic egrets, Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, with a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right, and with the immutable force of home and marriage.
Is the power of the mermaid chair only a myth? Or will it alter the course of Jessie’s life? What happens will unlock the roots of her mother’s tormented past, but most of all, it will allow Jessie to discover selfhood and a place of belonging as she explores the thin line between the spiritual and the erotic.

gradeLevels

1. • value: Grade 5

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Reviews for The Mermaid Chair and Sue Monk Kidd:
   • content: Book clubs, start your engines. Sue Monk Kidd's first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, has sold 3 million copies since 2002....Those are big shoes to fill, but Kidd acquits herself admirably with The Mermaid Chair....Both novels drip with vivid images of hot Southern afternoons, droning insects, swooping birds and oases in which nature is the fabric of life. It is a tapestry strengthened by bonds between women that bridge pain and loss. Most important, both have passages of beautiful writing... Kidd wrote two well-received memoirs before turning to fiction. But perhaps the answer ultimately given by The Mermaid Chair is that a storyteller also can change course and come of age in the middle of her life. —USA Today

     "Her writing is so smart and sharp, she gives new life to old midlife crises, and she draws connections from the feminine to the divine to the erotic that a lesser writer wouldn't see, and might not have the guts to follow." —Time

     "(A) rewarding second novel by the author of the bestselling Secret Life of Bees. Writing from the perspective of conflicted, discontented Jessie, Kidd achieves a bold intensity and complexity that wasn't possible in The Secret Life of Bees, narrated by teenage Lily. Jessie's efforts to cope with marital stagnation; Whit's crisis of faith; and Nelle's tormented reckoning with the past will resonate with many readers. This emotionally rich novel, full of sultry, magical descriptions of life in the South, is sure to be another hit for Kidd." —Publisher's Weekly, starred review

     "Compelling reading.... The writing is soulful in its probing of the human heart and family secrets." —The San Francisco Chronicle

     "Secrets are told. Mysteries are revealed. In one rich and satisfying gush..., Jessie reevaluates just about every aspect of her life: her husband, her lover, her mother, her artwork, the death of her father decades ago, and most of all herself... Rewarding." —Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

     "If [The Secret Life of] Bees was a girl's coming-of-age novel, [The Mermaid] Chair is a woman's coming-of-middle-age novel....The prose thrilled me. Kidd can really turn a phrase and her descriptions of nature's archetypal elements are magnificent." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

     "A woman at life's crossroads, a parent's tragic death and a strong, if eccentric circle of women. Stir in a forbidden love, and the pages all but turn themselves." —Parade

     "Kidd grabs you from the first sentence of The Mermaid's Chair. It is a satisfying tale that balances Southern gothic...[with] wish-fulfillment romance and a down-to-earth dissection of family problems. Sue Monk Kidd is a high-end practitioner of Ya-Ya-ism, with a lucid prose style and a fine sense of story. ... A good read." —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

     "Richly rewarding." —Chicago Tribune

     "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." —Booklist

     "Fans of Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, will be equally enamored with her beguiling sophomore effort....Reconciling the spiritual with the human, The Mermaid Chair is a captivating metaphorical and sensual journey into one woman's soul. Weaving enduring folklore about the seductive and transformative power of mermaids into a modern-day tale of rebirth, the novel shows us that sometimes we need to swim out to sea for the currents to carry us back home." —Book Page

     "It's hard to put this book down for little things like sleeping and eating." —Elle

     "A well-told tale about marriage, mystery – and mermaids....Kidd writes at a deeper emotional level than she did in the...

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from February 21, 2005
     Jessie Sullivan, the protagonist of this rewarding second novel by the author of the bestselling Secret Life of Bees
     , is awakened by a shrilling phone late one night to horrifying news: her mother, who has never recovered from her husband Joe's death 33 years earlier, has chopped off her own finger with a cleaver. Frantic with worry, and apprehensive at the thought of returning to the small island where she grew up in the shadow of her beloved father's death and her mother's fanatical Catholicism, 42-year-old Jessie gets on the next plane, leaving behind her psychiatrist husband, Hugh, and college-age daughter, Dee. On tiny Egret Island, off the coast of South Carolina, Jessie tries to care for her mother, Nelle, who is not particularly eager to be taken care of. Jessie gets help from Nelle's best friends, feisty shopkeeper Kat and Hepzibah, a dignified chronicler of slave history. To complicate matters, Jessie finds herself strangely relieved to be free of a husband she loves—and wildly attracted to Brother Thomas, né Whit O'Conner, a junior monk at the island's secluded Benedictine monastery. Confusing as the present may be, the past is rearing its head, and Jessie, who has never understood why her mother is still distraught by Joe's death, begins to suspect that she's keeping a terrible secret. Writing from the perspective of conflicted, discontented Jessie, Kidd achieves a bold intensity and complexity that wasn't possible in The Secret Life of Bees
     , narrated by teenage Lily. Jessie's efforts to cope with marital stagnation; Whit's crisis of faith; and Nelle's tormented reckoning with the past will resonate with many readers. This emotionally rich novel, full of sultry, magical descriptions of life in the South, is sure to be another hit for Kidd. Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.
     20-city author tour.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     May 2, 2005
     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. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 21).

popularity

1316

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shortDescription

A transcendent tale of a woman's self-discovery—the New York Times–bestselling second work of fiction by the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings
Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.
When Jessie Sullivan is summoned home to the island to cope with her eccentric mother’s seemingly inexplicable behavior, she is living a conventional life with her husband, Hugh, a life “molded to the smallest space possible.” Jessie loves Hugh, but once on the island, she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk about to take his final vows. Amid a rich community of unforgettable island women and the exotic beauty of marshlands, tidal creeks, and majestic egrets, Jessie grapples with the tension...

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awards

1. • source: Quills Foundation
   • value: Quill Award
2. • source: The New York Times
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publisher

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   • description: Fiction / Literary
2. • code: FIC044000
   • description: Fiction / Contemporary Women
3. • code: FIC045000
   • description: Fiction / Family Life / General