What We’re Reading

The seduction of water | Carol Goodman

Carol Goodman definitely has a thing for water. She has written several mysteries set in the Hudson Valley in which water is a key element. (The Lake of Dead Languages and The Drowning Tree are two others). I heard her speak about the importance of place at a library conference, which led me back to her books.

Here she tells the story of an adjunct English professor who shuttles beteen classes in a prison and community college in Manhattan. She is in an uncommitted state her relationship with her artist lover has no future, and she is unable to commit to completing her dissertation. After selling a short story to an avant garde magazine, she is persuaded to write a book about her mother - a famous author who died under mysterious circumstances when she was a child.

Her research takes her back to the Catskill resort her parents had managed, and which her aunt is still managing.As she delves into the fanatasy world her mother had created, and seeks the lost third volume of her famous series, she uncovers a reality that someone close to her will kill to keep hidden.

Goodman stated in her talk that her locales are all composites of places. The resort has elements of Mohonk, or perhaps Miniwaska House.

Find it in the Catalog