The Mermaids Singing [Hardcover]

Lisa Carey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1998

This stunning first novel--rich with Celtic imagery and unforgettable characters--explores three generations of contemporary Irish-American mothers and daughters, in a story that vividly depicts truths universal to all families.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This impressive first novel spans three generations of women and two continents while addressing several complex issues related to mother-daughter relationships, spiritual displacement and cultural identity. In the 1950s, teenage Cliona leaves her home, a small island on the west coast of Ireland called Inis Muruch (the Island of Mermaids), and emigrates to America where, while planning to study to be a nurse, she works as a maid for a Boston family. An unwanted pregnancy thwarts her career plans and proves the first of several such events in this novel. Grace, Cliona's daughter, grows up in America but returns to the island as a teenager, experiencing as much trauma in arriving on the isle as her mother did in leaving it. Rejecting her mother's homeland, Grace returns to the U.S. with her own daughter, Grainne, and cuts all family ties. But patterns are repeated generationally like waves on each respective Atlantic shore, and the links with the past prove binding. In a sensual story of first loves, fatal decisions and alienation, Carey skillfully infuses her heroines with individual generational traits while lending them the same dreams?of mermaids and the ancient pirate queen after whom both daughters are named. Through the alternating voices of Cliona, Grace and Grainne, we eventually understand the special and distinctive burdens each generation bears, as well as the repetitious tricks of fate that have driven them apart. Though the novel suffers from a certain schematic rigidity and a tendency toward melodrama, it is, in Carey's skilled hands, an absorbing story. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-Complex and heady, this novel focuses on three generations of Irish/Irish-American women. The fluid narrative shifts among years and the voices of its compelling characters. Cl!ona's story is both past and present, memory and chronicle. She is a strong woman who understands that life is made up of mistakes and compromises, and that no two people see things the same way. Grace, her daughter, is wild, willful, and promiscuous, unable to commit herself to anyone but her daughter, Grade inne. Grade inne is seeking her place in a world she doesn't quite trust. Although Grace dies at the beginning of the book, her presence is felt throughout; Grade inne must come to terms with the beloved mother who deceived her about her past, and Grace herself narrates the chapters about her rebellious youth. Cl!ona struggles to bond with her granddaughter as she failed to with her daughter. This involving intergenerational saga looks at challenges and misunderstandings, connections made and broken, family lost and found. Teens will empathize with Grade inne as she tries to come to terms with her mother's death and her own life.
Susan Salpini, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 257 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380976749
• ISBN-13: 978-0380976744
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,491,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Don't Get It, September 17, 2002

By 

Hippolytos (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Mermaids Singing (Mass Market Paperback)

I don't really understand the negative reviews posted in response to this novel. The debut effort of Lisa Carey, "The Mermaids Singing" is a multi-generational, matrilineal saga of three very different but very similar Irish women. The matriarch, Cliona, her daughter Grace, and her granddaughter Grainne, speak their stories to the reader in individual first-person narratives. This can be somewhat confusing, especially as Grace passes away quite early in the novel, but this confessional style is intriguing, affording the reader not only the understanding of what happens to each character, but also how that character affects those around them.

Many reviewers comment on the overabundance of sex throughout the novel, but when taken in context, it makes perfect sense not only in the lives of the characters, but in the times they were coming of age. Strangely, the theme of sex unites all three characters. For Cliona, sex is an abstract concept obscured by religious dogma; for Grace, sex is an act through which she can rebel and attain what she wants; for Grainne, sex is an act through which she can feel something other than her pain. Anyone who attended Catholic school will understand these women's motivations.

The prose is lyrical and caustic. Even though these women often speak their minds, the way they do so causes a lot of self-doubt and regret. Too late they realize that their words have fueled actions and feelings that cannot be taken back. Carey writes wistfully of Ireland, and the beauty that lives there balanced with its desolation and isolation.

While this book won't change history, it's a moving and enjoyable read of the lives of these interesting women. Highly recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Myths Just Aren't Enough, May 2, 2002

By 

Raynette Eitel (Las Vegas, NV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mermaids Singing (Mass Market Paperback)

The Mermaids Singing had so much promise. The author is a poet at heart, using language skillfully, but needs help in character development. It was really hard to see where one character ended and another began. Grace and Grainne were so focused on sex that their lives became meaningless and self-centered. The images of the sea and mermaids was beautifully done, but one wonders why the author didn't take more time in adding depth to the characters so that they were believable. The book did not live up to its promise, even with all the lovely images.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What One Can Learn From Her History..., December 15, 2004

By 

bharring (Living Under A Rock) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mermaids Singing (Paperback)

Cliona, a traditional-minded Irish woman immigrated from Inis Murdoch to Boston, where she worked as a maid for an upper-class family. An unlikely sexual encounter leads her to become pregnant with her daughter, Grace. Grace grows up feeling that she is unwanted by her mother who she views as weak, intolerant, and subservient to others. Cliona, on the other hand, wants to protect her beautiful, strong-willed daughter from the dangers that face young girls, and wants to keep her from making the same mistakes that she made as a girl. After a disaster leads to friction with the family that Cliona works for, and a widower from Ireland offers Cliona the opportunity to return home to be the mother of his children and help him manage his inn, Cliona drags Grace back to Ireland against her will.

After several years of moping, Grace finally meets and falls in love with Seamus. The two marry and Grace gives birth to a daughter, Grainne, but can never overcome her longing to return to the United States. This homesickness culminates in a late-night escape, in which Grace flees Ireland and returns to America, denying her curious daughter any knowledge of who her father is. Grainne grows up, therefore, thinking that her father was just one of the many men who passed in and out of her father's life. However, when Grace dies of breast cancer, Cliona reemerges to bring fifteen year-old Grainne back to Ireland against her will, in the same way that she once dragged Grace back. Grainne becomes intrigued by the notion that her father, a man with whom her mother once shared a transcendant love with, is still alive and wants to see her, and tries to find him. In the meanwhile, she can only cope with the loss of her mother by starving herself and withdrawing from virtually everyone on the island.

This story could have easily degenerated into a Lifetime movie script, with its plot about three generations of women tracing their roots back to Ireland. However, Carey's lyrical, vivid prose and seemingly genuine love of her characters, makes it instead a vivid and moving portrayal of love and betrayal and loss. The story is narrated alternately by each of the three women, with Grace's story being told in third-person as her death is depicted at the beginning of the book. As another reader pointed out, sexuality is a strong theme running throughout the book as Carey compares and contrasts each woman's experience of sex. Cliona, the traditionalist, seems to view sex as a shameful act of indulgence, for which she was punished by giving birth to Grace. Grace, on the other hand is wild and free-spirited, and has passionate sex with both Michael, the son of her mother's employers, and Seamus, her husband. For her sex is both an expression of love and a pleasure in itself. Grainne, finally, feels inadequate in the shadow of her temptress mother. She experiments with boys, and, left unsatisfied is still waiting for the right one to come along with whom to "go all the way" with.

I higly recommed this book that tells a story of love and lust and loss and betrayal as these three women in their own way, gradually come to terms with one another.