The Mermaid Chair

I just like Sue Monk Kidd's approach to a story. Her prologue is risky, Kidd lays the premise clearly out of her main character, Jessie sullivan, a mature woman, mother and so lost to herself. Her path back to herself includes falling in love with a Monk that lives back on the island where Jessie must run to as her mother cries out for help. Her mother's cry comes in the form of cutting off one of her fingers. Jessie's cry out comes in the form of going home. Her healing comes from facing the death of her idolized father and her letting go is evident in her art.

Kidd's ability to take me to this marsh town and become ever so entangled with each character speaks to her talent. I smiled as I pictured her images of the Mermaids driving show more cars, cooking and working in the local shop.

"The mind is so good at revising reality to suit our needs." A quote Kidd makes in The Mermaid Chair that hints of the capabilty of any human.

Sue Monk Kidd, well done....I get it. show less

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 show more 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. show less

I was totally drowned in this book. A great work of fiction, it pulled me into the story completely and I had difficulty resurfacing. I fell for the characters in the book instantly, and could see myself in each one of them, especially the main character Jessie and her mother Nelle. It had me thinking about my own relationships in my life. In the book, Jessie faced a time of needing to be alone, to find herself; it triggers me also to think about my own quarter-life crisis.

In the middle of my marriage, when I was above all Hugh's wife and Dee's mother, one of those unambiguous women with no desire to disturb the universe, I fell in love with a Benedictine monk. It happened during the winter and spring of 1988, though I'm only now, a year later, ready to speak of it. They say you can bear anything if you can tell a story about it.

I'm very torn over this book. Well, I went into reading it already torn...having adored The Secret Life of Bees but very apprehensive about this main character. As it turned out, try as I might, the main character (Jessie) just wasn't someone I could like. I understood her life challenges, really I did, but I thought she was too selfish, too self-centered, blind, fully lacking any wisdom a 42 year old woman should have gained and really freaking lucky in the end. She also reminded me *very* much of someone who was in our lives, married into our family, and all the hurt and confusion she left behind when she choose to find her own "solitude of being." In that way she became more real, and her choices more personal. Also personal was the show more fact that Jessie had lost her father at the same age I lost mine...so that thread I could identify with to an extent.
I loved the setting...the island life, the quirkiness of the other individual characters who shaped the story, the religious and mythological themes woven throughout. I could smell the marsh, hear the birds, the ancient roots reverberating through the fog, the monks silences. I wanted Nelle to be the main character mostly...she was intriguing, full of tragic grace and had the better story to tell.
So...if I were basing my rating on Jessie and her story, the book would get 2 stars but I took it as a whole and gave it 4. Sue Monk Kidd is wonderful at writing imagery and she tells a story well. show less

I was so disappointed in this book. This is what happens when I refuse to read summaries before I pick something up. I am so tired of these types of books: white middle-aged woman isn’t satisfied with her life now that her kids are away from home, so she decides to “find herself” and woops! looks like that involves having an affair. Just — can we get away from this story? It’s not compelling. I’m tired of stories that focus on cheating as a way of finding what you really want in life and finding out what satisfies you. I get that it happens, but there are so many ways this story can be told and most of them don’t end up with me hating a main character I’m supposed to root for, because s/he is a selfish person who has no show more compassion for their significant other’s feelings.

Also, the main character immediately fell in love with the guy she cheated on her husband with. IMMEDIATELY. She saw his face and was started daydreaming of spending a life together with him, regardless of how he thought about it and what he wanted. Just. Ugh. WHY?!

If we ignore the adultery and awkward affair, though, it’s actually quite a nice story. I wish it had only focused on the aspects of the main character re-examining her past, getting to understand her mother a little better, and reconnecting with her childhood home. She grew up on a small island, which is a character in its own right, and I loved the details of all the various creatures and plants living in it and the lifestyle of the people who made their homes on it. I also appreciated the mythology of the Mermaid Chair and the story it was given. I felt like all of this was the heart of the story, and it could have easily been told without all the cheating and weird love-at-first sight (but really lust) stuff, but that’s fine.

Of course, read it if it interests you, but this wasn’t really my kind of thing.

Also posted on Purple People Readers. show less

I liked The Secret Life of Bees 🐝 and was expecting to like this one...at least a little bit! But I didn't.

The writing itself was good! She’s a talented word smith and the story is engaging....hence the 3 stars

⚠️ (Spoiler ahead)

It’s the subject matter that ruined it for me...both trite and overdone: woman dumps husband of 20 years and appears to be having a midlife crisis. She falls in love with a man she can’t have (this just felt like she was looking for anything to justify her discontent and leave her partner). Things don’t go right, so she returns to husband because he ain’t so bad after all. Ugh!

I thought this was a story about finding oneself, making difficult choices, etc. And maybe it is, but maybe she could show more have done it without wrecking those around her first...maybe I just wasn't in the right mood (or life stage) for this book!😂 show less