Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2013
368 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
Formerly an up-and-coming magazine editor, Jenny Lipkin is now your average, stretched-too-thin Brooklyn mom, tackling the challenges of raising two children in a cramped Park Slope walk-up. All she really wants is to survive the sweltering New York summer with a shred of sanity intact. But when her husband, Harry, vanishes one evening, Jenny reaches her breaking point. And in a moment of despair, a split-second decision changes her life forever.
Pulled from the brink by an unexpected ally, Jenny is forced to rethink her ideas about success, motherhood, romance, and relationships. But confronting her inner demons is no easy task. ...
"Shearn deftly paints her novel's familiar (at least to New Yorkers) setting, but she seems less certain of what to do with her plot." - Publishers Weekly
"[The] author possesses a gift for infusing a mundane situation (an abandoned housewife) with the implausible (a mermaid) and building a story that many readers will find intuitive, clever and, on many levels, perfectly believable." - Kirkus Reviews
"Amy Shearn's second novel charmingly blends the magical with the real. … Funny, fearless, and unexpectedly moving, this modern fairy tale is, in a word, enchanting." - Boston Globe
"An absorbing, energetically offbeat novel that merits attention." - Kansas City Star
"In this sly and wise new novel … Shearn captures both the beauty and the banality of parenthood. We spend most of this delightful, grown-up fairy tale wondering if the mermaid is real or a figment of Jenny's imagination—or her id. Regardless, she leaves us wondering how to bring a little mermaid magic into our own lives." - Oprah.com
"A fierce and vivacious book about motherhood, astounding in itshonesty, fearless in its humor, and exploding with love." - Maria Semple
"I absolutely loved this inventive, smartly written tale of astruggling single mother who finds herself seeing her life through neweyes—those of a lusty, fearless and frequently wise mermaid eager to take onall the world has to offer. Insightful and engaging." - Jill Smolinski
This information about The Mermaid of Brooklyn was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Amy Shearn is the author of How Far Is the Ocean from Here. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota's MFA program. Her work has appeared in The Millions, Poets & Writers, The L Magazine, Opium, and Five Chapters, and she writes for Oprah.com and RedbookMag.com. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
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