Waterbaby - A New Novel
September 3rd, 2007 | by Sue |
Imagine if you will that the haunting and the rescued baby at Hendrick’s Head lighthouse (Southport, Maine) are related to each other. Well, that is exactly what happens in the new novel, Waterbaby by Cris Mazza. This surreal novel, due out in October from SkullandBone Publishing, is about a middle-aged woman named Tam, who journeys to Maine to visit her family’s light keeping past after a crisis with her roommate that forces her to examine her life.
Tam is a former olympic caliber swimmer whose career was cut short by an epileptic seizure. She was rescued by her brother, but in her heart she knows he pulled her under during a race with him. This was the defining moment of her life. Her life from then on is focused on her perceived disability and family betrayals, as she attempts to remain in control of her body, never getting close to anyone.
Traveling to Southport at the request of her sister, she meets a distance cousin in the graveyard, finds a newborn baby in a public restroom, steals the baby for his mother and hides out at the lighthouse with them. In this surreal novel, she takes on the persona of her ancestor, Mary Catherine, and with her cousin’s help, weaves a story about what could have happened. By novel’s end, she has come to terms with the ghosts of her own past.
Cris Mazza succeeds in weaving an evocative picture of the fishing town of Southport, at the mouth of the Sheepscot River. This is a wonderful story of one woman’s journey to self-discovery, painted among the fog shrouded coast of Maine. If you’re looking for a book that blends the past with transcending an illness, I highly recommend Waterbaby.
Ms. Mazza is the author of a dozen books of fiction, including the critically acclaimed Is It Sexual Harassment Yet?, and the PEN Nelson Algren Award winning How to Leave a Country. She also has a collection of personal essays, Indigenous: Growing Up Californian. In 1995 Mazza and a co-editor put together the original Chick-Lit: Postfeminist Fiction anthology, not to be confused with recent banal romances marketed under the same name. Among her other titles are Homeland, Disability, Former Virgin, Dog People and Your Name Here: ___, and among her other awards are an NEA Fellowship and three Illinois Arts Council literary awards. A native of Southern California, Mazza grew up in San Diego County. Currently she lives 50 miles west of Chicago. She is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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3 Responses to “Waterbaby - A New Novel”
By Lydia on Sep 6, 2007 | Reply
May not be technically haunted, but definitely haunting. Mazza’s novels are like little worlds, where a character’s interior landscape becomes imprinted on their environment like a 3-D map. Always engrossing, always memorable, Mazza hits it out of the park with this one.
By Sarah on Sep 6, 2007 | Reply
Waterbaby is yet another one of Mazza’s enthralling tales of emotions rarely caught in such bona fide attitude. The way she pulls together the traditional folk lure of Hendrick’s Head Lighthouse and her own plot creates a sense of authenticity that is hard to differentiate the legend from the fiction. This novel is a compelling read that keeps you yearning for more.
By Seattle Reader on Sep 16, 2007 | Reply
This haunting, beautiful novel tells of compelling story of risk and loneliness accentuated and echoed by the setting. Part ghost story, part tale, part psychological realism, this is a book not to be missed.