Drowning Practice
A Novel
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- 22,99 €
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- 22,99 €
Publisher Description
Profoundly moving, filled with tenderness, and brought to life by a curious, sprawling imagination, Drowning Practice is the story of a mother and daughter trying to save each other’s lives at what could be the end of the world
One night, everyone on Earth has the same dream—a dream of being guided to a watery death by a loved one on November 1. When they wake up, most people agree: after Halloween, the world will end.
In the wake of this haunting dream and saddled with its uncertainty, Lyd and her daughter, Mott, navigate a changed world, wrestling with how to make choices when you really don’t know what comes next. Embarking on a quixotic road trip filled with a collection of unexpected and memorable characters, Lyd and Mott are determined to live out what could be their final months as fully as possible. But how can Lyd protect Mott and help her achieve her ambitions in a world where inhibitions, desires, and motivations have become unpredictable, and where Mott’s dangerous and conniving father has his own ideas about how his estranged family should spend their last days?
Formally inventive and hauntingly strange, Drowning Practice signals the arrival of a singular new voice in Mike Meginnis, who writes with generosity and precision, humor and sorrowfulness. Stirring and surprising at every turn, Drowning Practice is literary speculative fiction at its best and with a pulsing heart: a mother and daughter trying to decide how they should live out what might be the final months of their—or anyone’s—life on Earth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Meginiss (Fat Man and Little Boy) sets a mother and daughter's escape from an abusive ex-husband against a pre-apocalyptic backdrop in his layered sophomore effort. It begins with an arresting premise: everyone on Earth just had the same dream that they will all die in seven months, on the day after Halloween. Some take their own lives or ask others to kill them, while others burn down buildings, drink excessively, or attempt to continue life as normal. Lyd, a successful novelist and mother to 13-year-old Mott, attempts to hide from her abusive ex-husband, David, who claims to be a spy but won't say for which agency. Lyd and Mott's travels through a dystopian landscape has echoes of The Road, up until they arrive at the University of Houston and move into a dorm, where they find a new, semi-civilized normal, and Mott attends a writing workshop and forms a friendship with an awkward woman who works the front desk. Inevitably, David shows up. There's a lot going on, and it's a little baggy, but Meginnis writes well about the dread Lyd endured when living with David, and an ambiguous ending leaves many open questions to keep the reader pondering. Many writers continue to imagine the end of things, but Meginnis has found a new way to make it disturbing.
