| Seduction of Water (Ballantine Reader's Circle) | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 38 reviews)
Sales Rank: 296981
Category: Book
Author: Carol Goodman
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Studio: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Label: Ballantine Books
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0345450914
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780345450913
ASIN: 0345450914
Publication Date: December 30, 2003
Release Date: December 30, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Iris Greenfeder, ABD (All But Dissertation), feels the ?buts? are taking over her life: all but published, all but a professor, all but married. Yet the sudden impulse to write a story about her mother, Katherine Morrissey, leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtime?and nestled inside it is the sad story of her death. It captures the attention of her mother?s former literary agent, who is convinced that Katherine wrote one final manuscript before her strange, untimely end in a fire thirty years ago. So Iris goes back to the remote Hotel Equinox in the Catskills, the place where she grew up, to write her mother?s biography and search for the missing manuscript?and there she unravels a haunting mystery, one that holds more secrets than she ever expected. . . .
Amazon.com Review
Carol Goodman's admirable second novel, The Seduction of Water, has much in common with her bestselling debut, The Lake of Dead Languages. Both feature heroines who are at crossroads in their lives and who choose to move backward and inward. In the first novel, the main character returns to teach at the woodsy private school where she had been a scholarship student, triggering the horrible repetition of the violence that had marred her senior year. In The Seduction of Water, the heroine returns to the woodsy hotel in the Catskills where her parents had worked, in the hope of uncovering her dead mother's secrets. Somehow, the book doesn't feel like a reiteration of the earlier novel, perhaps because the tone throughout is lighter and more sure. Iris Greenfeder is a 36-year-old barely published New York writer and teacher whose long-term boyfriend, an artist, sees her schedule as strict and therefore will not spend the night, because he likes to get up and paint first thing every morning. When one of Iris's stories about her mother is picked up by a small literary journal with a well-connected editor, things start to happen for her. She becomes convinced that a summer out of the city, working as manager of the old hotel, will give her the perfect setting in which to pen a memoir of her writer mother, as well as an opportunity to look for the rumored manuscript of her mother's final book. But there are those who are just as determined to keep the dead woman's secrets in the grave. Only mildly suspenseful, and relying too much on coincidence, The Seduction of Water isn't the page-turner that Goodman's debut was, but patient readers may find it a richer and more satisfying novel overall. --Regina Marler
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
Second novel is a hit... November 20, 2008
Those who enjoy mysteries and thrillers will certainly appreciate this well-written suspenseful novel, but those who normally avoid that genre should not shy away from Goodman's works.
Iris Greenfeder has just turned 40 and is consumed by the "all-buts" that describe her life: all but dissertation, all but professor (teaching as an adjunct at three different institutions, including a correctional facility), and all but married (in a ten-year long rather detached relationship with an artist named Jack).
Part of her problem with her dissertation is that she is too close to the subject matter: her mother. Iris' mother, Katherine Morrissey, arrived at a hotel in the Catskills with one suitcase, never spoke of her family or background, married the hotel manager within a year, and then in addition to helping manage the hotel, wrote two science fiction/fantasy novels about a world called Tirra Glynn.
When Iris was nine years old, her mother went to New York for a writers' conference but did not return home. She died in a hotel fire, but not at the conference hotel, registered under another name.
Throughout her life, Iris has been obsessed with the selkie tale her mother always told her as a bedtime story, and one day, she assigns her students to retell a fairy tale or folk story. This prompts her to finish her own essay which retells the selkie story and also commemorates her mother.
When the piece, "The Selkie's Daughter," unexpectedly gains literary notice, Iris receives backing to embark upon a project to write a full-length memoir about her mother. This sets her on a journey to discover Katherine's background and to attempt to locate the final novel, the missing piece of the Tirra Glynn trilogy.
A fascinating cast of characters follows Iris to the Catskills for the summer, where she attempts to find the manuscript and learns a great deal about her mother and herself. She also uncovers a number of mysteries surrounding her mother's life and death, which ultimately places her own life in grave danger.
A lyrical telling of one woman's search for truth June 9, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Several years ago, I read Goodman's wonderful novel The Lake of the Dead Languages and it was one of those books that just stuck with me. I gave it to my husband to read and, shortly thereafter, stumbled upon this book and wondered why I hadn't yet read anything more by Goodman. While I found this book to be another lovely and lyrical tale, I don't think I liked it as much as The Lake of the Dead Languages, though that's not meant to be a criticism.
As with her previous novel, Goodman works several themes into the novel. The main character of this novel is similar to the main character in that previous work in that they are both women who appear to be in a sort of stasis. Iris Greenfeder, the protagonist of this novel, is somewhat aware that she is a soul in flux but she doesn't quite seem to know how to shake herself out of her torpor. Iris herself puts it best when she notes that her life is a series of "all buts": all but thesis, all but married, all but a writer. Her character exemplifies the trap that we all fall into in which we yearn for the things we really want in life but stay where we are because we know it, which therefor makes it safe. Unfulfilled in her career and her relationship, she is, however, reluctant to be proactive and seek what it is she desires.
A lot of her uncertainty is tied to the mysterious death of her mother, who was registered as another man's wife when she died in a hotel fire when Iris was young. Before her death, Iris's mother had written two of the planned three novels of trilogy and Iris returns to the hotel where she grew up, ostensibly to work on a memoir for her mother while seeking the manuscript for her mother's third novel. Iris, however, does precious little of either and, instead, spends the summer at the hotel engaged in an affair with an ex-convict who is her former student.
Though Iris's search for the truth about her mother is a central theme of the novel, her search for the truth in her own life is just as prominent. As her relationship with Aidan progresses and she begins to think about leaving her old and rather stultifying life behind her, she must face the truth about what she's made of her own life. Has she been so obsessed with what happened to her mother and why that she has forgotten how to live herself?
Like the main character in The Lake of the Dead Languages, Iris's quest is more internal and while it is tied to a mystery, the mystery is really secondary. Goodman writes eloquently about women who think they know what they want out of life but who don't quite have the courage to pursue it. It's a compelling theme and one with which I imagine many women can identify.
Seduced by the title May 6, 2008
My family thoroughly enjoyed this book. The fairy tale of the Selkie within the book is spellbinding. My intention was not to read a fairy tale but Goodman captivates and makes me want to simply continue on with this terrific fairy tale.
And then, the story switches to Iris Greenfeder and her life as an aspiring author and teacher of writing and how she comes to be attached to two men at the same time, an ex-convict and a struggling artist.
Iris is in search of her deceased mother's manuscript, the third in a trilogy which Iris hopes will help her to understand her mother's life and untimely death. The weaving of the Selkie tale and Iris's mother's life begin to seem like they are one and the same.
I enjoyed the characters and thought they had depth and interest enough to want to read to the end to know how it all ends.
 not as good as lake of dead languages March 29, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I absolutely loved "The lake of dead languages" and I devoured this book eagerly but it just wasnt as well crafted or as believable. The author seems to strain to tie the plot together.
Not my Favorite of Goodman's Novels January 6, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am fan of Carol Goodman's writing style and use of mythology and folklore in her novels yet Seduction of Water wasn't my favorite of her novels. There was something about the story that kept me very detached from the characters.
Iris's struggle to find herself while finding her mother's final novel was intertwined with the Irish folklore of the Selkie, but there were so many parts of this story that were not as memorable as they could have been.
If you are a fan of any of Goodman's other novels I would recommend reading this story, otherwise read her other stronger novels to get a better feel for what Goodman has to offer.
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