The Mermaids Singing

There is definitely a whiff of the fantastical in my friend Lisa Carey's first novel, and - not discounting the siren call of the title mermaids who drift and sink and surface throughout the narrative - the majority of that magic comes from Carey herself, who flits with effortless grace through the lives and perspectives of three generations of women. The cracks between these women and the stories behind these cracks are what drive the story forward, but I was mesmerized by Carey's ability to assume such disparate voices and tell all of their stories with such a generous hand. She breaks your heart with the telling, but she also hands the pieces back to you by the end. Just brilliant.

"She thinks how odd it is, that the strongest convictions, like possessions, can lose all meaning when you are dying. Everything that she thought she was about has slipped from her, and the things she never wanted are clinging to her memory like the seaweed in the crevices at her feet."

This one spoke to me. It's about mother-daughter relationships, and it is told from differing viewpoints of three generations of women - grandmother, mother and daughter. I think mother-daughter relationships are so complicated; we want our own opinions and lives and yet we cannot escape, if that is the right word, the lingering shadows of the women who have shaped us. For good or for ill, our mothers are a part of who we are. Their voices sound in our show more thoughts and in our hearts, and their choices have far reaching consequences.

"He saw my mother differently that I had. After all those years of believing my mother a cold, unforgiving woman, it frightened me to hear myself likened to her. For the first time I had the notion that my father had seen my real mother, and I her facade, rather than the other way around. Perhaps I had merely misunderstood her, just as I believed that Grace (her daughter) misunderstood me.

My father died twenty-three years after his wife, and yet it was my mother I grieved at his funeral. I grieved that I had not known her, that she had died before I was a mother, before I had a chance to understand that no one is the mother she plans to be."

This book does such a good job of dealing with all of those feelings and of dealing with grief. Here, the grandmother and the granddaughter are left to deal with the loss of the woman that ties them together. Grace has died of cancer and her teenage daughter is left to deal with truths that she does not understand - she did not know that she had a grandmother and a father back in Ireland. She has only ever known America, and the fiction that her mother had created for her. Now she must travel back to Ireland with her grandmother and learn a new truth.

"I sometimes think that God planned our lives all wrong. What's the use in learning the truth so long after the opportunity to use it has gone by?"

This novel is just so well done. Every character rings true and the heartbreak and redemption that can be found in opening yourself to another are apparent on every page. This is one I know that I will revisit, and I have to thank Katie for pointing it out to me. I might not have found it on my own. Thank you, Katie. show less

This is a solid tale that takes place in both the Boston area and on a fictitious island off the coast of Ireland. It was marred for me by the unlikeability of all three of the women characters. I had sympathy for all of them, but it took a bit of effort to care about them. There's a lot of self-destructive behavior on part of both the daughter and granddaughter, although I felt the grandaughter, Gráinne, was much more deserving of my sympathy than her mother Grace was.

At times the language is just beautiful.

“Close your eyes, Gráinne,” my father said, when he realized I was crying too hard to answer him. “You can begin again in the morn.” And he sang to me then, in a language I had forgotten, until the tears dried to salt on

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my cheeks, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

And there is a wee bit of humor as well.

“We Irish are devout Catholics, but we’re fanatic pagans as well.”

There is a slight undercurrent of the uncanny bordering on magical realism that I greatly appreciated. show less

A rich story of mothers and daughters and the mistakes we make that manages to almost entirely avoid the maudlin, melodramatic, yet forgettable nature that seems to plague most "strong women" fiction. The similarities between grandmother, mother, and daughter's personalities, locations, and situations made an otherwise straightforward story into a deeper and more layered experience. However, those similarities combined with the narrative shifts and non-chronological telling meant that you had to pay attention or risk losing track of whose story you were in. I thought the use of Irish mythology added another nice layer of texture to the story without being too affected. The one element that disappointed me, however, was Grace's show more relationship with Seamus; it was never clear to me what he saw in her, yet it was clearly a major turning point in these women's lives. Overall, an enjoyable read, and moving in its own way. show less

This book isn't really about mermaids, so be forewarned. It's more of a 'chick lit' book (perfect for those of you who like chick lit) and it was a book I really enjoyed. It's interesting to see the relationships between mom and daughter (Cliona/Grace, Grace/Grainne) as well as grandmother and granddaughter, and adding a bit of Irish myth (of Grainne) added a great touch to the story. The writing itself is overall solid and enjoyable, narrated in a fairly smooth style from all three women's points of view, and the conflicts between two characters - whoever they might be at that point - was believable and interesting, as well as each woman's experiences between America and Ireland. Overall a enjoyable read.

The Mermaids Singing is the story of three generations of women: Cliona who was born in Ireland on Inis Muruch though she left for Boston where she had her daughter Grace before she returned home and married; Grace who considers herself American and bitterly resents her mother for dragging her to the island; and Grainne, Grace's daughter, who is born on the island but taken to America by her mother until Grace dies of breast cancer when she returns to live with her grandmother.
Each woman is a product of her times and upbringing. Cliona works as a domestic, raising the children of a wealthy family in Boson, but wants her daughter to live the values of Catholicism and the stricter island life she was raised in. Grace is bitter, resenting show more her mother for her sternness in a time of women's' lib and sexual freedom. Grainne is young, angry that her mother is dying and not understanding why her father never came for her.
The writing is lovely, descriptive and capturing the rhythm of island life well. The characters are real, not always nice but true to themselves. The sea is always with them, and the singing of the mermaids in the waters around them fits the story well.
This was a truly enjoyable read. show less

Told in alternating voices of three women, Grainne, the daughter, Grace, the mom, and Cliona, the grandmother, The Mermaid Singing is a battle beween home and family and a woman’s desire for adventure and freedom. As the story opens, Grace is dying of cancer. Her boyfriend Stephen cares for her until her death at which time he transfers Grainne into the hands of her estranged grandmother who has come to Boston to bring her back to Ireland. Fearing returning to the land in which she was born but no longer knows, desperate not to leave Stephen, and quite wary of her unfamiliar grandmother, Grainne becomes distraught as she tries to decide how to handle her precarious situation.

As the story unfolds, we learn that the lives of the three show more related women are eerily similar. So much so that, at times, I had to concentrate extremely hard to be sure about which of the three I was reading. All three women are willful, strong, and stubborn. It’s curious to see how these traits play out among the different generations through the years.

Despite the toughness of the women, I found it difficult to understand why all had such a hard time figuring out what they needed to be happy. They seemed to have spent quite a lot of time floundering about before finding sources of comfort.

Myths of mermaids are woven into this story, not only because of the island’s name, but also because most of its men are seafarers who make their living on fishing boats. Sadly, not all of these fishermen are able to survive the ocean’s toughest storms. Mermaids, according to legend, usually have a place in these unfortunate deaths.

For readers who like stories about women and especially for those who like an Irish touch to a story, this should be the perfect read. For me, it was a bit less, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless as well as a bright introduction to the work of Lisa Carey whose writing I can see reflects a sincere and deep love for all things Irish. show less