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"A hilarious and daring portrait of growing up gay in the American South. One roots for Lily as one does for Huck Finn. This beautifully written debut novel explores the fragile links between a girl's growing awareness of her sexuality and the far-reaching effects this has upon her family."—Pamela Ball, author of Lava and The Floating City
"Lu Vickers is an exquisite writer. Her work can be, at once, poetic, sharp, hilarious, and relentlessly moving. In Breathing Underwater, she investigates, with keen insight, the legacies of guilt, the intricacies of the mother-daughter relationship, and the complexities of budding sexuality. A stunning, rich, and haunting debut." --Julianna Baggott, best-selling author of Girl Talk, The Madam, and Lizzie Borden in Love
In 1970s Chattahoochee, Florida, where the main employer is a mental institution, it's sink or swim for Lily. When her mama, a former beauty queen who once dreamt of being Miss Florida, takes Lily and her siblings fishing one morning, Lily nearly drowns while her mother looks on, "weighing her gains against her losses." Lily proves to be a survivor, which she will need to prove again and again, as she struggles to stay afloat amidst her mother's slow mental deterioration, her first love, and her quest to come to terms with who she is and what she wants from this crazy world. With lyrical prose, Lu Vickers gives voice to Lily's inner soul, and in turn reveals how universal our needs and desires are.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
David Sutherland
reviewed Breathing Underwater on May 12, 2009
Breathing Underwater
I predict that this book will be shortlisted for a Lammy Award, because it's well written in the writing workshop sense. There are some thoughtful metaphors, lots of sensory detail, well-rounded main characters. But there's just a smattering of lesbian content: a coming out story that's sad but ordinary.
The focus of the book is the relationship between Lily (the main character) and her dysfunctional family, especially her mother. That tale is sadder, but the reader gets jerked around so much with literary devices (and stereotypes--most egregiously, Southern mental patients whose "eccentrities" are supposed to be funny) that I started rebelling against letting Vickers take my feelings where she wanted them to go.
I tried to like this book more and write about it warmly, and I tried to get more indignant about it and write more critically, but in the end I feel neutral.
[Later: Most members of my book group liked this book and thought the mother was depicted as having bipolar disorder. I didn't read it that way, even though (or perhaps because) I myself have BPD. Maybe my ambivalent feelings about this book are that it cut too close to the bone.]
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Add Breathing Underwater, A hilarious and daring portrait of growing up gay in the American South. One roots for Lily as one does for Huck Finn. This beautifully written debut novel explores the fragile links between a girl's growing awareness of her sexuality and the far-reachin, Breathing Underwater to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add Breathing Underwater, A hilarious and daring portrait of growing up gay in the American South. One roots for Lily as one does for Huck Finn. This beautifully written debut novel explores the fragile links between a girl's growing awareness of her sexuality and the far-reachin, Breathing Underwater to your collection on WonderClub |
