Noah D. (noah-d) reviewed on 8/11/2009 + 8 more book reviews

Sue Monk Kidd, the author of 'The Secret Life of Bees', writes 'The Mermaid Chair' within the regional setting of her own roots, the South Carolina Lowcountry. The story centers around a woman re-exploring her identity and sordid familial past on an island which holds a unique monastery with a miraculous mermaid chair. While recounting a love affair, the story also raises basic philosophical questions about what life means on an individual basis, the consequences of ancestral mistakes, and the struggle and intersection between love, religion, mythology, and miracle. For those who know the story from 'The Secret Life of Bees,' the mermaid chair plays a similar esoteric role as the black Madonna did at the honey farm. Kidd, though centering around the female struggle of finding identity, always adds in a religious, almost magical element to her work, fusing the sacred with the mundane.

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