I think I'm probably in the minority here, but I have to say, I totally got what was going on with Jessie, and why she did what she did, and I'd even go out on the limb of saying that I don't think that the transformation that she underwent, and that ultimately her relationship with Hugh underwent, could have happened without the relationship with Brother Thomas.

As Hugh himself comments in thinking about Jessie... the act of falling in love is, in itself, a huge cataclysmic event - the cause AND the result of desiring a change in yourself, or at least how you perceive yourself. I got the sense (and this was one of the things I related to strongly) was that Jessie didn't know what she wanted, didn't know how to talk to Hugh - because if you don't know what you want, how do you even begin to broach the topic? It's not easy, and you can dismiss having an affair as "the coward's way out", and maybe it even is... but the act carries a great deal of power with it as well... a pushing of the cosmic reset button, if you will. I think to dismiss it as an act of cowardice is to not give it the consideration it deserves.

I don't think that Jessie's relationship with Thomas could have withstood the test of time - I'd almost be inclined to call it more of an infatuation than love. But I wasn't sure how happy I was with her decision to have gone back to Hugh. I kept wishing we'd get a window on their life ten years from the end of the novel, to find out if the "change" had been lasting, or if they had slowly reverted back to their old selves.

I was surprised by how many people commented on how quickly it seemed that Jessie "jumped into bed" with Brother Thomas - it didn't feel like a couple of days to me when I was reading. That was actually one of my biggest complaints about the book - its sense of time (or perhaps my own) seemed jumbled, so I was often thrown by how it seemed like several weeks had passed, but then someone said something that made it seem like there had been no time at all. I was most struck by this when Jessie had someone bring her painting supplies to the island. On one page, she gets the paints, then on the next, she's painting, but the narration states that she "had already done a number of mermaid paintings" for her friend's store, and I was lost... how had she done them? Had weeks passed in the turn of a page?

Re: someone else's question about the symbolism of the turtle skull... turtles are most often used as a symbol of either the steady base on which all else turns (most non-western mythology has some variation of the turtle as holding up the earth, usually on it's back). If we consider it from that point of view, you could see the turtle as a symbol of all the steadying factors in Jessie's life... her daughter, her marriage, her friendships with Hepzibah and Kat, her mother (even in her illness). Similar to this, the turtle is often a symbol of longevity or enduance... again, similar to the steadying factor, but perhaps, if looked at from this angle, a symbol of Jessie's own inner strength, which she rediscovers during her time on the island, particularly once she learns the truth of her parent's story. I've got a vague memory dancing at the edge of my brain that at least one of the Native American creation myths has the turtle saving the people from a flood, before carrying the earth on its back (I can't remember more without digging out my mythology textbooks, sorry). If we look at that aspect of it, again, it is similar, but we could almost see the turtle skull as representing Brother Thomas and/or their relationship - "rescuing" Jessie and then providing the footing for her rebuilding of her life with Hugh; with her changed inner self as the core inner strength that helps her remain true to herself, within the structure of returning to life with Hugh. That might best explain why she was so relieved to have the skull returned to her at the end of the novel.

This may be the longest comment I have even left on any blog, anywhere.

hi Sandy--

I read this book a few years ago and wasn't compelled to read it again, though I've hung on to it, probably because of the setting, which speaks to me so dearly.

I remember liking The Secret Life of Bees better. I think this is because I found the heroine more compelling and sympathetic.

Because I LOVE novels set by the sea, I was really expecting to love this book, so it took awhile for me to realize I wasn't going to love it. Heh.

On to the next one, which I haven't read. Do you have a date for the next discussion?

Thanks for not throwing tomatoes... and I agree that Jessie will be entering an entirely new life with Hugh. It is still a bit like going backward, though. People don't change that completely. Maybe that's part of the message, though. We can change in fundamental ways, but we need to hang on to certain things.

I wasn't a big fan of "The Secret Life of Bees", so I'm not sure if I'd like The Mermaid Chair. Did you read "Bees"? If so, what did you think of it? Did you like this book better?

I finished this book a few weeks ago and I would have also been ok with Jessie leaving Hugh for Whit and Whit leaving the monastery to start over somewhere else.

I did find it a little strange that she gets to the island and almost immediately falls in love. I could see her forming a bond with BT with everything that she is thinking about but to just quickly fall into love and an affair, I don't know.

I find myself periodically coming back to refresh comments to see what is new. What an interesting discussion. I've never done a book discussion before and wondered how it would be, definitely fun. Does anyone else read National Geographic? There was a fascinating article about the science of love
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0602/feature2/
I really do believe there could be an instant and very strong attraction between Jessie and Whit although I would certainly not define that as love. Maybe that's a form of love too but then it takes a whole lot of work to turn that into a sustainable relationship. Having been through more than one breakup myself I do feel it *could* have been believable for their relationship to continue on such a tenuous beginning but it was really more interesting for her to return to Hugh, that provides more growth of character.

Nora, I'll throw no tomatoes at you! I agree, I could have totally accepted Jessie leaving Hugh permanently, and Whit leaving Brother Thomas behind, though I think it would have been too pat for them to have stayed together in leaving their pasts behind. They'd have to build a relationship on a lot more than just what they had for that to be believable.
I also think that Jessie did go on to a completely new life. I think the author emphasized that. Jessie and Hugh did not a resume their old life, they were building a new one, just together with a better understanding of themselves and each other. That's the only believable way they could work it out together - a complete new relationship. I think the separation (though not the affair) was as necessary to Hugh as to Jessie. He wouldn't have noticed their need to evolve without something cataclysmic.

I loved this book for the beautifully vivid, poetic prose but I think there are some deficiencies in plotting and character. I felt let down by the explanation for the mother's chopping off of her fingers. That's a major step away from reality and I think it requires something more violent, more directly her fault, than her husband escaping a terrible trip into lingering death.

As for Jessie. Well, I'm sort of in Hugh's situation (though there is no Brother Thomas figure involved as far as I know), so that may be coloring my dislike of Jessie's infidelity. But I've always held firm that we should deal with issues in a relationship, not complicate them by involving another. I'm not naive, though, so I know a lot of people do choose that chicken way out (and I can't help it, I DISAPPROVE). Jessie's discontent though is quite believable, far more so than her mother's. Her sense of blame for her father's death entitles her to confusion and emotional stunting. I can forgive her. I'm not sure I can believe Hugh would rejoin the relationship, but I'm glad it was a new start, not a patch up of the original relationship.

One of the lasting things I took from this book is an image in my mind, inspired by Jessie's mermaid paintings (though my image is not a mermaid), that I hope to create as a felt wall hanging for my fiber studio.

I'm glad I read the book. And now I will be reading the others' comments. I like this book discussion!

Thanks so much for suggesting this book. I would not have picked it up on my own, and I did enjoy it more than I thought I would. The descriptions of the island waterways were so rich, you could almost smell the swampiness mixed with the salt. I could definitely have done without the amputations - too intense for me- but I understand something needed to be extreme to get Jessie to the island. I have to agree with Barbara that the instant falling in love was improbable to me. I wanted to shake her and say that just because Hugh huffed little breaths when he slept was not a reason to sleep with someone else! I LOVED the friendship between Kat, Nelle and Hepzibah, and the fact that it had lasted so many years. Their unwavering support of Nelle, and attempts to make a horrible situation of losing her husband better, were a wonderful testament to women. My 17-yr old DD asked me if I thought she would like it and I had to say no b/c I think there are whole sections she would not get because of her lack of age and experience.

This post has taken me two hours to write b/c of interruptions, carpooling, making lunch, etc, so I'm eager to go back and read what has been commented on since then - hope my comments are still relevant!!

I guess it was surprising in a novel way that Jessie did go back to her life. Perhaps the only way she was able to do that was the fact that she was living with a psychiatrist.
I found myself feeling more empathy towards Witt than Jessie. Again, perhaps my curmudgeony attitude about marraige vows and duty and honor and all of that. I did want Witt to be happy, he deserved that most of all (not that Jessie did not) and if his future was with Jessie I would have accepted that. But I could feel the abandonment towards her own daughter that perhaps she was unconsciously passing on as her legacy from her own mother.
No tomatoes.
What did the turtle skull represent? Hmm. I'm thinking on that one!

I loved this novel. And you guys can all throw rotten tomatoes at me, but I would have been OK if Jessie would have permanently left Hugh and if Whit would have left the monestary - not because I'm a crazy romantic, or because I found Hugh untenable, or because I'm in favor of people breaking solemn vows of any kind. But this was a work of fiction about rebirth. Why do you suppose Jessie found herself swimming in the swamps and mucking about in the mud? There was something quite primordial about the whole thing. So if she had found an entirely new life after she discovered what had really been going on in her childhood, and in herself, I could have been comfortable with that - in a work of fiction, mind you. If Jessie were someone I knew, I'd be incredibly sad and disappointed in her and feel the same things other commenters are expressing here. But since Jessie is really an archetype, I'm OK with suspending reality to consider how things could have been had Jessie gone the whole hog, if you will.

Sandy, thank you for hosting this great discussion - I'll check back to see if there are any tomatoes cast my way!!

I read, or rather listened to, this book some time ago. My overwhelming response to it is the same that I have to books like the Horse Whisperer and Bridges of Madison County. In my opinion it is much more difficult not to have an affair after these many years of marriage. It was made more difficult in these books when the husbands are just decent husbands doing their jobs and caring. We all have times when we don't feel the passion, and despite our upbringings (I mean, unless you had the most disfunctional imaginable, most of us have some complaints that we just need to get over), we need to behave in moral, mature ways. Books like this one and the others I mentioned are presuming some sort of compassion for the poor lovers and I only feel it for the cheated on, not the cheaters. And I agree, at our ages (well, we mid-forties types), you don't go around falling in love at first sight with someone you don't even know. This fiction was too out there for me. I can't remember much about the relationships between the women, but I do remember thinking that the people in my life are too open to get to the places these people got to. Just lucky that way. I was disappointed in this book, as I had read Secret Life of Bees (listened to-this one was so good, the narrator was excellent and I think I enjoyed it more so for the narration) and loved it, then was so let down by this novel.

So, what will the next book be?

I read this book a while ago, and I didn't like it as much as The Secret Life of Bees. The issues with family and marriage made me uncomfortable as I was dealing with some similar ones in my own life. Transitions are always tough and in the end who can say whether the road taken or not taken is the right one except for the traveler. I may not like Jessie's choices, but if she knits, I'd have coffee with her:)

Although I found the affa1r disturbing on Jessie's part and Br. Thomas, the book was a good read. Very lovely imagery. I understand the creative breakthrough for Jessie, her feelings of guilt and possibly her reasons for returning to Hugh. At her character's age/experience, I just don't fully see the motivation for the rolling in the sand with Br. T.

Why did Jessie almost forget her daughter? Is that an echo of what she did to her mother or what her mother did to her?

Interesting. Depressing. What did the turtle skull stand for?

Carole, the mother/daughter relationship was most interesting starting with the secrets and then the daughter taking care of the mother while in essence learning to care for herself.
Barbara: Sorry you did not finish the book yet. I guess it's hard to imagine as a responsible wife/mother/woman actually running away and living that life. It seems quite like a teenager, the falling in love and strong sexual urges and all.
Julie: the paintings fascinated me. On this site: http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/mermaid_chair1.asp
asks the question, "How does a woman like Jessie become "molded to the smallest space possible"?"
I did not remember that quote in the book but her art boxes are quite symbolic of her living in a small space. And the paintings show her change as she freed herself to become the woman she really is and only then did she break free from the small art boxes that molded her into the definition of artist. However, a woman going through change and exploring the secrets of her past do not have to have all consuming sex on the beach to find the inner artist. But again, that is just me.
I had never looked at the book as a mystery but you are right in coining is as such. I read through quickly to find the answers to all the mysteries: the father and his death, the mother and her torment, Hugh and his ultimate betrayal, Jessie and her childhood memories, all mysteries.
This conversation is great! Thanks for joining in!

I just have absolutely zero time to read a book these days, so I wonder if this is available for download....because I DO have time to listen. Would you recommend it?

I did find the book to be a fairly engaging read because I wanted the answers almost as much as Jessie did. I do like a good mystery and this is probably what I most enjoyed about the book. Jessie's separation from Hugh and ephemeral relationship with Br. Thomas seemed like her unconscious response to those unanswered childhood questions and the niggling doubt that left her with a feeling of powerlessness in her life. What about her paintings though? That was kind of interesting how she rediscovered the artist in herself.

I'm not finished with the book yet, but I agree with you (views of marriage, etc) although, I can't say I've never had a "running away" fantasy...
I also agree, that for Jessie, apparently she couldn't move on without understanding the truth of her past. But I think that regardless of our past, we have responsibilities to fulfill the commitments we've made. I would like to have coffee with her, and I would ask her how is it possible to "fall in love" so quickly. I mean, how can you just have sex with wild abandon on the 2nd meeting? Hello. How can you love without knowing someone...at least at her age...you would know better! anyway...

The mother/daughter relationship bothered me but mostly I suppose because of my own issues with my other. I felt Jessie's burden of having to care for her mother and I wished she didn't have to do it. I would have liked to have coffee with ALL of them - except maybe the mother. ;-)