A Novel I won’t be reading
A couple of days ago I went to the library. Among the books I brought home was The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd. I picked it up on a whim because I’d heard of it somewhere before and because it has “mermaid” in the title. I began reading and I have to say that I am very impressed with the power of Ms. Kidd’s prose. She really knows how to create images. Unfortunately the image I was seeing framed was that of a woman with a wonderful life, a beautiful house, and an amazing husband who was disatisfied and didn’t know why. Judging from the cover flap this woman does not confront the “why” until she has torn her life apart with adultery. I didn’t want to read that kind of pain. I flipped to the last chapter where I discovered that she returns to her husband and they rebuild their life together. The protagonist makes clear that the love is different than before, but that she is better able to love because she is her own person rather than an annex of her husband. I can agree with that last bit, but there are so many better ways to find yourself than to damage everyone around you. Particularly when what you are destroying is part of how you want to redefine yourself.
I won’t be reading the middle section of The Mermaid Chair. The first chapter and the epilogue tell me enough story that I feel no need to slog through the painful middle.