Staff Pick
The Drowning Girl is a work of fiction, but as our narrator, Imp, reminds us, that doesn't mean it's not true. A study in necessary works of fiction — you know, those stories you need to read, or to write. The stories that save you, or that damn you ("ghost stories," Imp calls them). The Drowning Girl is beautiful, diverse, and heartrending, and it manages to be literary but accessible. Lush with East Coast folklore and beauty, The Drowning Girl pulls references from all walks of life. Kiernan's characters breathe on the page, sometimes steady, sometimes ragged with emotion.
Pick up The Drowning Girl. It will stay with you, for better or worse. Recommended By David R., Powells.com
This Gothic tale about fractured lives and the selves that live them is horrific (but not necessarily horror) and a ghost story (not necessarily about ghosts). What follows is the deeply weird The Drowning Girl — a fractal of memory and experience that is both fantastic and true. Recommended By Cosima C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
India Morgan Phelps - Imp to her friends - is schizophrenic. Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about her encounters with creatures out of myth-or from something far, far stranger...
Synopsis
"With The Drowning Girl, Caitlin R. Kiernan moves firmly into the new vanguard, still being formed, of our best and most artful authors of the gothic and fantastic--those capable of writing fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness."--Peter Straub India Morgan Phelps--Imp to her friends--is schizophrenic. She can no longer trust her own mind, convinced that her memories have somehow betrayed her, forcing her to question her very identity.
Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about an encounter with a vicious siren, or a helpless wolf who came to her as a feral girl, or something that was neither of these things, but something far, far stranger...
Synopsis
A complex, haunting novel that explores a schizophrenic young artist's struggles with her perception of reality... including an intriguing ghostly woman who appears to her in the most mysterious ways. India Morgan Phelps--Imp to her friends--is trying to write her memoir, but she struggles with the unreliability of her own mind. Suffering from schizophrenia, as well as comorbid anxiety and OCD, Imp has a difficult time separating fantasy from reality. But for her, it's most important to tell her "truth."
And for Imp, that truth comes through a stream-of-consciousness tale of her love story with her transgender girlfriend, as well as Imp's obsession with a mysterious woman whom she finds naked and mute at the side of the road. Imp must push past her mental illness--or work with it--to piece together her memories and tell her story.
A rich exploration of mental illness, gender identity, and creative process, The Drowning Girl delivers an eerie and powerful story of a woman's efforts to discover the truth that's locked away in her own head.
"Caitl n R. Kiernan moves firmly into the new vanguard ...] of our best and most artful authors of the gothic and fantastic--those capable of writing fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness."--Peter Straub
About the Author
Caitlin R. Kiernan is the author of nine novels, including Silk, Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, Daughter of Hounds, and The Red Tree. Her award-winning short fiction has been collected in six volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; and, most recently, A is for Alien. She has also published two volumes of erotica, Frog Toes and Tentacles and Tales from the Woeful Platypus. Trained as a vertebrate paleontologist, she currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island.