The Mermaid Chair

By: Sue Monk Kidd

Narrated by: Eliza Foss

A transcendent tale of a woman's self-discovery—the New York Times–bestselling second work of fiction by the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings

Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.

When Jessie Sullivan is summoned home to the island to cope with her eccentric mother’s seemingly inexplicable behavior, she is living a conventional life with her husband, Hugh, a life “molded to the smallest space possible.” Jessie loves Hugh, but once on the island, she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk about to take his final vows. Amid a rich community of unforgettable island women and the exotic beauty of marshlands, tidal creeks, and majestic egrets, Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, with a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right, and with the immutable force of home and marriage.

Is the power of the mermaid chair only a myth? Or will it alter the course of Jessie’s life? What happens will unlock the roots of her mother’s tormented past, but most of all, it will allow Jessie to discover selfhood and a place of belonging as she explores the thin line between the spiritual and the erotic.©2005 Sue Monk Kidd; (P)2005 Penguin Audio

Frankly, A Dissappointment

I am a fan of Sue Monk Kidd but this book dissappointed me. The female character is a bored housewife who finds a distraction in an unexpected setting. And that distraction happened to be a man who was as much running away from his life as she was.

Mixed in is a crazy mother who is trying to cast out her own demons. Maybe I am too dense to have connected everything, because I couldn't.

The Secret Life of Bees dissappointed me as well, but this book did so even more.

This book was not even close to the same reading..

....experience as it was when reading "The Secret Life Of Bees"....it was a good story and the characters were likeable enough....it touched on painful lessons and on letting go of one life and beginning another...changing who you thought you were to someone you really are supposed to be....there was a bit of blood (chopping off fingers) and the scenery and island were beautiful....but the story did not sweep me away and make me adore it like I did "The Secret Life Of Bees"....

Thoroughly enjoyed this book

Great narration of a story that has this little past middle aged woman thinking a out life

THE MER

Having just finished Sue Monk Kidd?s, THE MERMAID CHAIR, I find the need to voice my feelings about this profoundly wise, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable book. Ms Kidd has again created a vivid world of ordinary characters whose emotions contain the complex, extraordinary meaning of our daily lives. Her prose permits the reader to divine the very soul of her characters.

Ms Kidd?s is a special gift I hope she will share with her readers again soon.

I really wanted to love this book.

I read The Secret Life of Bees and thought it was a 5 star book. So I was excited to find Sue Monk Kidd's second novel. While I enjoyed the book, it was not as compelling as "Bees." In "Bees" every story line is woven into the fabric of the book. I found the Mermaid Chair a bit lacking in that department. There are too many holes and not enough back story to fill them. I was left with an incomplete picture of why characters behaved in the way they did. It was a good read, just not so compelling that I would make a point to recommend it to friends.