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Curling up with Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid Chair was like an extended therapy session. I read it straight through, cover to cover, unwilling to leave the story for a moment. It felt like a glorious treasure hunt, where I kept uncovering allusions to my own pain, my own joy –and found myself alternately laughing and sobbing when I did. It wrenched my soul. The Mermaid Chair is a beautiful journey of re-discovering the women we were meant to be. It is an examination of the way Life erodes our Lives, and how little by little, our true selves ebb away, like the tides main character Jessie spends so much time contemplating on Egret Island. For those of a less reflective bent, The Mermaid Chair is also a damn fine story – of love, loss, mystery and mythology. Jessie Sullivan is called away from her perfectly comfortable life and perfectly lovely husband Hugh to care for her estranged mother. Her mother, after years of courting madness following the death of Jessie’s father, seems to have finally gone completely over the edge. Jessie goes home to tiny Egret Island to care for her Mom, and, oh, by the way, falls hopelessly, head-over heels in love with Whit O’Conner. Who, by the way, happens to be a monk. But as improbable as the plot line sounds, the underlying story is as probable, plausible, and real as the walls of your own home, the corners of your own mind. Kidd’s book spoke to me so personally that I am having trouble remembering where her story left off and where my story begins. It feels like a story told to me by a long lost sister – someone who knew me as a little girl, and who helped me remember when I lost that little girl. I see myself and my friends in Jessie, whose dreams for her life have been so stifled she didn't even realize she had them.
The Mermaid Chair is a talisman for unlocking those dreams, and re-membering the women we were meant to be. Set aside a nice big block of time and a box of tissues when you pick it up.
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