It was a lovely evening!
***
Marriage and relationships are on my mind, as I just finished reading Susanna Daniel's Sea Creatures, her second novel following Stiltsville. Daniel is going to be appearing with fellow second novelist (An Echo Through the Snow, Traveling Light) and fellow Madisonian Andrea Thalasinos next Tuesday, August 20, 7 pm, at Boswell.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZMdFo7RzTxGZLA6k4Gx4Vtj9d9zcyTq5M2DkGZUVPA-JG_xEvqacVS2KqctFicHa7MFdg5EpWqf9rnJHxN20zc-hYsTYYrSNAyqNpb9a_DrLDTN9zNGtQ1pEUecpNRimQxKgbb44kNQF/s1600/Sea+Creatures+813+small.jpg)
Oh, and her husband has parasomnia (an extreme form of sleepwalking) and her son has selective mutism. Their past is a mess, with a lot of unresolved issues regarding not just her family disorders, but regarding her mom's death, and the future is pretty fragile. You can just sense Hurricane Andrew off in the distance, and that hurricane portends a worsening of the family bonds.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnF08RejmtTc9uaUcRlUJkG6ZwL-S4um_EAat9LLDsw5Sf3P35-OQu1n0NWLYGjQ-2xRfxkZ6x4NKXZ5gMaWVT887klSgU_wX8gF3ONlXvmZjIZYgy7mZ5KSmkI3ua_T23xXNIOV2965i9/s1600/Traveling+Light+713+small.gif)
The sea creatures were played up a bit more on the advance edition, but the octopus was replaced on the finished jacket, as the Harper folk apparently didn't know how hot these icons are on gift items of late. Weren't they reading my blog posts? Of course the family are all sea creatures--not just Graham, Georgia, and their son Frankie live on a houseboat, but so does Charlie, the man that Georgia does errants for. I do think the new cover adjusts the focus of the potential audience for the book (as do all cover changes, right?) and the publisher will see whether not easily being merchandised with octopus journals was worth it in hopes of a more hospitable audience. I'm just kidding about this, of course.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGWkEY5pqvDsdYCbajGPQmgOb2VckVtCKDkaNWsgqp9WNv7AerPal8y-TLJbotYW8hCY5P8ojLqDJcRhN20d9rEdAYwgX5Jw1hh-zV_wqJ8FMqM_ifZaSoUQChJ1kCnag2-F1mIjbAuXYU/s1600/Sea+creatures+galley.jpg)
Also like Georgia Quillan, Paula Makaikis winds up escaping to a new locale (in this case, Minnesota) for a new start, and must confront some father issues as well. With these interesting similarities in mind, I asked Susanna Daniel and Andrea Thalasinos if they wouldn't mind structuring their event as more of a discussion. In addition to a short reading from each, they will be discussing the psychological components of the books as well as the strong sense of place that each tried to bring to their novels. And of course they'll be a question and answer period too.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQVw38KhpwH1EvzniJOovNc4Y2DRA0bJabFoWVoqSs8tRGFPRo84hdyWzb6bIAEG_5Xc5xvCWHL3Sue_vcDfyGgD9ObILNwQ1n9afM5WbGWvVkQbO_3cAqpnrAp_HqopqETxcigWr0QPpS/s1600/Susana+Daniel+and+Andrea+Thalasinos+813.jpg)
In the Roanoke Times, Lawrence Wayne Markert called Thalasinos' newest "an engaging story, a good summer read, about Paula Makaikis’ journey of personal discovery. Stuck for 10 years in a third unsuccessful marriage, this time to a hoarder who is an accomplished physicist at Columbia University, fate in the tradition of classical Greek literature sends Paula into new exterior and interior territory."
Yes, I could have matched Daniels with another Florida writer or Thalasinos with another dog-friendly novel. But pairing together two novels about women overcoming their husband's health disorders? You've got to admit that's unique. See you Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment