One of my roommates is a huge fan of Southern American Literature (South Carolina, Georgia, etc) and recently pushed Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair into my hands.

Kidd starts with an interesting storyline: Forty-year old Jessie is called back to her childhood home on remote Egret Island after her mother, Nelle, cuts off her index finger. Jessie has suspicions that this episode is linked to the sudden death of Jessie's father thirty-some-odd years before as well as to one of the monks in the abbey next door. While on the island, Jessie finds herself falling in love with one of the younger monks at the abbey and subsequently separates from her husband. Jessie's emotional reawakening dominates her actions and the focus of the book.

The book is well-written and highly acclaimed as Southern Literature. Still, my reaction to the novel was lukewarm. I could not identify with any of the characters and did not understand their motivations or actions. Instead of trying to determine the reason for her mother's self-mutilation and erratic behavior, Jessie and her mother's friends tell themselves that questions would only cause Nelle to be more upset. Throughout the book I kept asking my friend why they hell they didn't do anything, and he assured me that it would make sense in the end.

It didn't; at least not to me. I'd give some leniency to the characters who "were in the know", but I would hope any rational child would be concerned with such an event. Personally, if either of my parents took a knife to themselves, I'd sign the psychiatric evaluation papers while still in the ambulance. Perhaps it's just me.

I enjoyed the setting of the novel and the peripheral characters, (Not to mention that Jessie wears a University of South Carolina hat throughout ) but I really only finished the book out of annoyance. Jessie's emotional and psychological evolution did not capture my interest when set against her family's mysteries.

I can see how other people may enjoy the book; it is a good book, but not for me.