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SEDUCTION OF WATER, THE
by Carol Goodman
Ballantine Books, January 2003
400 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0345450906


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Iris Greenfeder was an occasional essayist and part-time teacher at several institutions. Seared into her mind was the story her mother used to tell her at bedtime, the tale of the selkie, the seal woman who was forcibly seized by a farmer but who ultimately returned to the sea.

When she was young, Iris and her family had lived in an old hotel up in the Catskills where her father was the manager and her mother wrote, having published two science fiction books in a trilogy. Apparently she never finished the third book and died when Iris was ten, burning to death in the Dreamland Hotel in Coney Island. Iris had never been certain why her mother left or what she was doing at the Dreamland.

Kay Greenfederšs books interwove myths, fairy tales, fantasy, and many haunting fables into an otherworldly narrative which metaphorically paralleled her own life. When Iris was approached by several people who believed that her mother had finished the third novel, she decided to spend the summer at the Hotel Equinox, acting as its manager and searching for the document. The hotel had been purchased by a prominent hotelier.

That summer the hotel seemed like a re-creation of the past. Among the many guests were some who had stayed there when Iris was young. And several of the employees, especially Joseph the gardener, remained from when she had lived there. As the summer progressed she fell in love but also began to learn more about her motheršs life and death. In a stunning denouement, Goodman brings together the past, the present, art, theft, and fire to satisfy all questioners.

Just as her first novel (The Lake of Dead Languages) this is exquisitely and elegantly written. Goodman has a command of the English language that leads her to the precise word and exact image to convey what she wishes. The images, both of people and of places, are haunting and memorable. For example, here is her description of the lobby of the Equinox Hotel:

My mother had the walls knocked down to create one expansive lobby and sunk its marble floor so that standing on the threshold you look over the pale green velvet sofas and rustic tables, your eyes drawn to the floor- to-ceiling glass doors along the east wall, and out to a view of pure sky. The promise of the outer appearance is now fulfilled by the interior: you feel as if youšre on a ship floating above the clouds.

The characters are well-drawn, idiosyncratic, flawed, human. With just a few deft phrases she makes people come alive for the reader. Even the long dead, such as Kay Greenfeder, are authentic and believable.

My one quibble is that as Iris is moving toward understanding her motheršs past (and hence her own present) she must jump to a great many conclusions and make some heroic leaps of logic that I found almost breathtaking. She intuited much of the solution.

But this is a beautiful book to be read on many different levels bringing the past and present together and holding up a mirror to the world. What happened in the past haunts us all and coming to a knowledge of what we grew out of is important to our comprehension of who we are today. This book probes the soul and images of Iris and hence it prods us into trying to understand ourselves. The selkie who comes out of the sea then returns is us.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, February 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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