The Mermaid's Child, by Jo Baker
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The Mermaid's Child, by Jo Baker
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In this fantastical novel, the acclaimed author of Longbourn brings us the magical story of a young girl in search of her mother...who just might be a mermaid. Malin has always been different, and when her father dies, leaving her alone, her choice is clear: stay, and remain an outsider forever, or leave in search of the mythical inheritance she is certain awaits her. Apprenticed to a series of strange and wonderful characters, Malin embarks on a grueling journey that crosses oceans and continents—from the high seas to desert plains—and leads to a discovery that she could never have expected. Beautifully written and hauntingly strange, The Mermaid’s Child is a remarkable piece of storytelling, and an utterly unique work of fantasy from literary star Jo Baker.
The Mermaid's Child, by Jo Baker- Amazon Sales Rank: #773206 in Books
- Brand: Baker, Jo
- Published on: 2015-03-17
- Released on: 2015-03-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .60" w x 5.19" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 277 pages
Review Praise for The Mermaid's Child and Jo Baker:"Malin Reed, the tough, lonely, adventurous heroine of Jo Baker's novel, has never known her mother, but her dad insists she was a mermaid. . . . Baker's writing seduces as she recounts Malin's outlandish journey, which takes her from the crew of a slave ship, through the desert with a broken-down circus to becoming adrift in the ocean with an ancient scholar, all the while remaining on the lookout for a glimpse of her missing parent." —Oprah Magazine“Like Sarah, the spirited maid at the heart of Longbourn, Malin is a strong, determined heroine who persists in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Readers won’t have any difficulty rooting for her." —Booklist “Baker is a novelist with a gift for intimate and atmospheric storytelling.” —Financial Times "Some writers let you know that you're in safe hands from the start, and Jo Baker is one of them." —The Independent
From the Inside Flap When Malin's father dies, he leaves behind only his fantastical story that her mother was a mermaid. Set in an unspecified historical past, full of strange and wonderful characters, the story follows Malin's picaresque journey across oceans and continents, towards an unexpected discovery.
About the Author Jo Baker was born in Lancashire and educated at Oxford University and Queen’s University Belfast. She is the author of Longbourn, The Undertow, and of two earlier novels: Offcomer and The Telling. She lives in Lancaster, England.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Highly disappointing... By endlesswonderofreading Oh, the disappointment! The synopsis of The Mermaid's Child sounded fantastic. Mermaids! Circuses! Mythical Inheritances! Intriguing, right? Well, unfortunately, all of that together was just a mish-mash of boring.I love fantasy novels. Being transported to a mythical world is one of the great pleasures of reading. I had assumed that The Mermaid's Child would do this. But it didn't...not even a little bit. And that has a lot to do with the fact that I was never engaged in The Mermaid's Child. I kept reading in the hopes that I would turn the page and I would magically be invested in...everything; in Malin, in her journey and her quest to find the answers on her mom. But it never happened. After I hit page 150, I decided that I would just grit my teeth, stop expecting anything more from it, and just finish it.Basically, I found The Mermaid's Child to be incredibly boring, the writing was average, the characterization was average, and the book as a whole was just not something that I feel I should have invested my time in. I say, skip it.Disclaimer: I should also state that The Mermaid's Child isn't a newly released book...or rather this version is a re-release. It was originally released in 2004. There's nothing wrong with that, but I didn't see any mention of it on its 2015 Amazon page, so I felt I should say it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. This book reads almost like a gorgeous epic poem, stuffed with fresh, imaginative prose that I’d like to hear read out loud. By Bookreporter I haven’t used the word picaresque since college, when I answered an essay question about TOM JONES. But now, with Jo Baker’s THE MERMAID’S CHILD, it is relevant again, for this book (a paperback reissue of a 2004 novel) undoubtedly has the key elements of the genre: a roguish protagonist, often of the lower classes, telling his (or her) adventures in autobiographical form.Baker likes to subvert and tinker with literary traditions. LONGBOURN (2013) refashioned the story of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE from the servants’ point of view, focusing on a housemaid, Sarah. The contrast between her bleak life of unremitting labor and the elegant, if fraught, existence of Miss Elizabeth Bennet could not have been more powerful.This book does not offer the pleasure of a familiar story turned upside down, but Malin Reed’s odyssey did remind me, at various points in the narrative, of writers from Shakespeare to Fielding, Dickens to Mark Twain, with touches of Melville (a good half of the book takes place at sea) and Tolkien (like Bilbo and Frodo, she goes on a sort of quest).Malin, born of the union between a ferryman and a mermaid (according to her father), grows up a feisty misfit in what seems to be a northern English village during an unspecified historical past. (She is telling her life story to an anonymous “you” whose identity is not revealed until the very end.) Water seems her natural element: “The sea, where my father had travelled, where my mother might still be found. Thick crashing waves, a bite in the air, and the ever-present dark enticement of the mermaids’ song. My people.” So when an opportunity presents itself in the shape of Joe --- an attractive stranger who saves the town from drought by apparently making rain --- she leaves with him, hoping to find her mother.Joe is a con artist: He goes from village to village sniffing out trouble, produces “cures” in little blue bottles, then absconds in the middle of the night. When they reach the sea at last, an unsavory place called Sailtown, he gambles away his money, pimps Malin out, and finally in effect sells her, making her his stake in a losing game of dice. That’s when she runs for the second time.Masquerading as a boy, she signs on as crew with the slave ship Sally Ann. The captain is a twisted sadist (shades of Claggart in BILLY BUDD), but she finds a protector --- and, eventually, a lover --- in John Doyle, who teaches her to walk the rigging and topsails “like they were country paths.” When the slaves are taken on, however, shipboard life becomes tragic; every day, more of them die. Malin hallucinates that she sees and hears mermaids, and in her frenzy she strikes the captain. A terrible lashing follows, yet she not only survives but takes revenge, freeing the slaves and making her own escape.She is picked up by another ship, the Spendlove, an odd, Dickensian creation whose only cargo is books and whose only passenger is an ancient scholar named Jebb (even the name sounds like an escapee from OLIVER TWIST). Malin educates herself, reading all night, and claims to have found “evidence” that mermaids exist, in a white sea. Jebb scoffs: He loves books but says she can’t trust them: “[T]hey contradict each other, they obfuscate, they lie. Books are crooks.” (Ironic, given Baker’s own blend of fact and fancy.)But just as the Spendlove reaches the fabled white sea, pirates attack. Jebb is killed and Malin captured and sold for a slave in some unidentified desert country. Her purchaser, though, has a sidekick, a naive and sympathetic young man. She seduces him (the forced whoring has made her blasé about sex) and flees into the sandy wasteland. Almost dead from thirst, she’s rescued by a passing circus: the very same outfit that came to her village when she was a little girl, among its oddities a caged mermaid. Although the circus no longer has a mermaid (“They never last long,” says Marguerite, the former Fat Lady), they could use a tightrope walker (Malin learns fast; her sailoring skills serve her well). And then --- well, I think my synopsis should stop lest I give away the denouement (or run out of space). Suffice it to say that she comes full circle, ending up back in the village.THE MERMAID’S CHILD reads almost like a gorgeous epic poem, stuffed with fresh, imaginative prose that I’d like to hear read out loud. It is not exactly a realistic book; while filled with meticulously described settings, it also abounds in quasi-magical events and coincidences literally too good to be true. As in LONGBOURN, harsh facts (servants’ lives in early 19th-century England; the fate of slaves) are juxtaposed with elements of fantasy and romance. Both Sarah and Malin have true loves, though Malin’s is perhaps not what you might expect.But any novel that takes the protagonist through one life-threatening adventure after another is by definition plot driven rather than organically structured. In LONGBOURN, I felt that the action flowed from the development of Sarah’s character, and the result is gripping; the events of this book, in contrast, seem almost random. Malin starts out as a rebel with few scruples; Baker gives her a conscience and then, toward the end, engineers a vast personal transformation. Neither, to me, was quite believable. Malin is more credible as an unrepentant rascal, and I think that in the course of her journey she acquires survival skills rather than a deep moral sense. THE MERMAID’S CHILD works better as an adventure tale than as an emotionally engaging story.Yet it is a seductive novel. Although it (intentionally) echoes a number of literary classics, it is by no means derivative. Jo Baker possesses a voice and gift for language that are like no one else’s. Let us say that THE MERMAID’S CHILD has both the comfort of a literary tradition that lets us know in advance that the heroine will live to tell the tale, and the almost unbearable thrill of her exploits. It’s like watching or reading a scary tale from the safety of one’s own living room. What could be more delicious?Reviewed by Kathy Weissman.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Overall if you like coming of age story with sad tones then this is the book for you By TMBA Corbett This book was a difficult read for me. It is a fairy tale but a very sad one. I love fairy tales because I need to escape reality at times, but I did not want to stay in Malins' World. This book was full of abuse and sadness. I wish it was a little more uplifting when the search for Malins' mother starts but it stays sad. I found that the story was well told and the world was built nicely. The author can write, bu the tone of the book never picks up it stays sad. I also wish there was more to the plot it was simple and dragged on a t points. Overall if you like coming of age story with sad tones then this is the book for you. If you want a Disney fairy tale then this would not be the right book for you.
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