Visits from the Drowned Girl

This book is like a train wreck - morbidly fascinating but deeply disturbing. The morally ambivalent main character, Benny, repairs electrical towers as a second job and witnesses the suicide of a young girl. Propelled by the mystery she's left behind ( a number of pretentious original films made for college assignments ) Benny sets out to uncover as much as he can about the girl's life and death.

The book itself seems intent on making the reader squirm. The characters are unsavory, especially Benny himself, who starts out relate-able but soon degenerates into a truly monstrous person. There is truly, only one nice person in the whole book, and Benny devotes himself to publicly embarrassing her and making her life miserable.

The ending show more left much to be desired. Though the writing itself was descriptive and eloquent, I can't quite figure out why anyone would wish to render such a foul and nauseating set of scenes in such flawless detail. Gross and pointless. show less

I found this book very unpleasant to read. The POV character, a professional tower climber who at the beginning of the book witnesses a girl videotape her own suicide by drowning, is simply unlikeable in every possible way. He becomes obsessed with the drowned girl, and steals her things without reporting her death to the police. Then he tracks down her family using some very basic detective work, and for the next several months watches their anguish at not knowing what has happened to their daughter and sister. He dates the dead girl’s midget sister and plays one cruel, anonymous prank after another on her, never showing the slightest bit of feeling for her. The portrait of small-town North Carolina life given in this novel is bleak show more and hopeless, a series of pointless tragedies and random cruelties, where every human being lacks even common decency. There is no reason to like these people, their world or this book. show less

Benny Poteat has seen a lot of things, but when he sees a young woman drown herself, it becomes increasingly clear that Benny doesn't know how to deal with the things he's seen. Benny starts out as quite a likeable guy but gradually degenerates into a monster.

It was hard for me to imagine exactly how or why Benny arrived at the things he did or, more importantly, the things he didn't do, and so his transformation over the novel left me somewhat perplexed and not as involved as I might have been. However, the novel is populated with such quirky and richly detailed characters, events, and settings, that it was still a worthwhile, if puzzling, read.

My love of this book unfortunately rapidly fell away in the last few chapters where it seemed to peter out to a 'nothing' of an ending, leaving me SO disappointed because I was easily going to be giving it 5 stars until then.

Steven Sherrill's writing is just beautiful, it really wraps itself around you and makes you grab onto his words, but then, about three quarters into the book, it just seems to change and characters that you've found yourself endeared to suddenly seem to act out of character entirely (and coldly)- it almost feels as if the author has become bored and has given up. I didn't see the point of the ending - it seemed wishy washy and didn't really say anything.

My 4 star rating is probably being generous considering the show more latter part of the book, but my strong love for the majority of it has overridden the negatives.

I'll be interested to read the author's other works. show less

I do not need to “like” the main characters in the books I read, but I do need to be able to believe in them. I am not really attracted to books about people like me, (I lead a pretty boring life, really, and I don’t particularly want to read about the way someone else is living it). I like to be challenged by a story. I like to have my applecart upset. If I find myself reacting strongly to a character—good or bad—I know that the author has done her job, and written a good book. I may not convince anyone else to try reading it, but by god, I am glad I have read it.

Which brings me to Steven Sherrill, one of my pet favorite authors whose books are, well, difficult to convince people to buy. The first book, The Minotaur takes a show more Cigarette Break, was about a Greek myth that happened to be living in central North Carolina, working as a fry-cook. Not exactly your usual cup of tea but it was a beautifully written story about the isolation we all feel from those around us. Sherrill’s newest novel is called Visits from the Drowned Girl (Random House; $24.95, hardcover/$13.95, trade paperback), and it was fantastic. I don’t know if I’ll convince anyone else to read it and find that out, but I think it is one of the most complex and disturbing stories I’ve read this year. . .read full review show less

Probably not as good as The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break, but worth reading.