The Mermaid Chair (by Sue Monk Kidd)

(Amazon UK link)

Back in the autumn of 2020 I was so pleased to have social and other activities starting again that I went to a church book fair and bought rather a lot of interesting looking books. They went on my to-be-read shelf… and there many of them stayed. However I’m making a determined effort to read some of these books, and have just finished ‘The Mermaid Chair’. I hadn’t previously read anything by Sue Monk Kidd but she’s well known for her first book, ‘The Secret Life of Bees’. 

This book is told in the first person by a woman in her mid-forties called Jessie. The prologue tells us that she’s married to Hugh and that they have a daughter called Dee. It also tells us that she’s essentially a peaceful person with no desire to create disturbances. And that she fell in love with a Benedictine monk. 

The prologue also delves a little into legends about mermaids, and lets us know that the story is mostly set on a small (fictional) island called Egret Island, off the coast of South Carolina in the United States. 

Chapter One takes us straight into a crisis, in February of 1988. Jessie is awoken just after 5am by the phone. She’s pretty sure it will be an emergency for her husband, who is a psychiatrist. And while he’s having a conversation, she thinks about the house, and the reader is cleverly filled in on Jessie’s home, and life. She’s evidently feeling some discontent - possibly a mid-life crisis - but has no plans to do anything drastic.

Eventually she realises that the call is for her. It’s her godmother Kat, calling from Egret Island, to tell her that Jessie’s mother has had a nasty accident. Although she and her friends are not sure whether it was, in fact, an accident. They want Jessie to come and stay there as soon as possible. She is a self-employed artist, and although she's initially reluctant, she decides that this visit is long overdue. Hugh is sympathetic and does all he can to enable her to get out to see her mother as quickly as possible. 

There are several different strands to the story. One has already been mentioned in the prologue. Egret Island has a monastery, where Jessie’s mother has been working as cook. Most of the monks are elderly, but there are a few younger ones and there's one - Brother Thomas - who has not yet taken his final vows. It’s clear that he and Jessie are going to be mutually attracted. 

There are also some mysteries from the past. Jessie’s mother has some secrets which she isn’t willing to talk about. Jessie’s father died in a boat accident when she was young, and she’s felt, all her life, as if she were partly responsible. Brother Thomas, too, has to work out whether he really is called to the monastic life, or whether he’s escaping from the world due to a tragic bereavement in his past. 

The people are mostly three-dimensional. I could relate somewhat to Jessie, although her sudden new passion seemed a bit out of character. I liked Hugh very much and felt quite sorry for him; he’s evidently a person of deep integrity. I liked Jessie’s mother’s friends Kat and Hepzibah, who care deeply for her, too. I also became quite fond of Kat’s daughter Benne, who is possibly autistic, although it’s not spelled out. She says what she thinks without filters, and she’s highly intuitive. 

The writing is excellent, and I found myself quickly drawn into the story. My only niggle is that at times, in the middle parts of the book, I felt that the pace was perhaps a tad too slow. I wasn’t particularly interested in the sections about mermaid legends. Nor was I very taken with the mermaid chair, a strange pseudo-religious object although it plays a significant part in the story. 

There’s also some internalising when not much happens, although I was eager to learn more about the past, and how Jessie’s romantic life would pan out. And while the descriptions are evocative, there were rather more than I wanted to read. I like character-based novels and tend to skim descriptive sections. I had no idea which way the plot would go until towards the end, after another major crisis. 

Overall,  I thought this a very satisfying read, with some shocks as events and memories unfold. In places it reminded me a little of Elizabeth Goudge’s books, albeit rather more modern and with an American rather than English focus.  There are themes of family connection, of guilt - real or imagined - and forgiveness running through the novel. 

I would recommend 'The Mermaid Chair' to anyone who likes character-based fiction with some depth, a fair bit of description and some legends.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's Book Reviews