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The Mermaid Chair
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780143036692
ISBN: 0143036696
Label: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Manufacturer: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: March 07, 2006
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Studio: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Editorial Review:
Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair is the soulful tale of Jessie Sullivan, a middle-aged woman whose stifled dreams and desires take shape during an extended stay on Egret Island, where she is caring for her troubled mother, Nelle. Like Kidd's stunning debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, her highly anticipated follow up evokes the same magical sense of whimsy and poignancy.
While Kidd places an obvious importance on the role of mysticism and legend in this tale, including the mysterious mermaid's chair at the center of the island's history, the relationships between characters is what gives this novel its true weight. Once she returns to her childhood home, Jessie is forced to confront not only her relationship with her estranged mother, but her other emotional ties as well. After decades of marriage to Hugh, her practical yet conventional husband, Jessie starts to question whether she is craving an independence she never had the chance to experience. After she meets Brother Thomas, a handsome monk who has yet to take his final vows, Jessie is forced to decide whether passion can coexist with comfort, or if the two are mutually exclusive. As her soul begins to reawaken, Jessie must also confront the circumstances of her father's death, a tragedy that continues to haunt Jessie and Nelle over thirty years later.
By boldly tackling such major themes as love, betrayal, grief, and forgiveness, The Mermaid Chair forces readers to question whether moral issues can always be interpreted in black or white. It is this ability to so gracefully present multiple sides of a story that reinforces Kidd's reputation as a well-respected modern literary voice. --Gisele Toueg
A dazzling novel of passion and spiritualitythe instant blockbuster bestseller from the author of The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidds phenomenal debut, The Secret Life of Bees, became a runaway bestseller that is still on the New York Times bestseller list more than two years after its paperback publication. Now, in her luminous new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans. Telling the story of Jessie Sullivana love story between a woman and a monk, a woman and her husband, and ultimately a woman and her own soulKidd charts a journey of awakening and self-discovery illuminated with a brilliance that only a writer of her ability could conjure. Book clubs, start your engines. . . . [The Mermaid Chair] is a tapestry strengthened by bonds between women that bridge pain and loss.
USA Today
The pages all but turn themselves. Parade
Soulful in its probing of the human heart. San Francisco Chronicle
Kidd draws connections from the feminine to the divine to the erotic that a lesser writer wouldnt see, and might not have the guts to follow. Time
Its hard to put this book down for things like eating and sleeping. Elle
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - STUNNED & Reflective
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, ... Read More
Rating:  - Embarassingly bad
I loved Secret Life of Bees, but this book is just awful. It reads like a bad romance novel. There is no way this would have even been published if her former book hadn't been a bestseller. Absurd situations, unbelievable characters, laughable language.
Rating:  - Poignant
I must say I am kinda mystified to see all of the negative reviews of this book! Sure, the main character is wrong and bad and everything else, but it is precisely her humanness that makes her compelling...otherwise, why not just read a Superman comic? I like the overbearing presence of the natural element. I like the interwoven, complicated metaphors. I like the sex...really, there needs to be more sex in literature...and in everything else, really.
I like the historical secret and ... Read More
Rating: - Why all the bad reviews?
This book was a good book. Blockbuster? No. Literature? No. But it was an interesting, unique and enjoyable read. I didn't care for the behavior of the main character either but I don't have to like all the characters to enjoy a story.
Rating: - Read this book!
Sue Monk Kidd is an amazing writer. Her images, depth of character and storyline won me over completely. A most unusual, startling and warming book all in one. This one stays in my library.
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