On the grounds of a Caribbean island resort, newlyweds Deb and Chip-our opinionated, skeptical narrator and her cheerful jock husband who's friendly to a fault-meet a marine biologist who says she's sighted mermaids in a coral reef. As the resort's "parent company" swoops in to corner the market on mythological creatures, the couple joins forces with other adventurous souls, including an ex-Navy SEAL with a love of explosives and a hipster Tokyo VJ, to save said mermaids from the "Venture of Marvels," which wants to turn their reef into a theme park.
Mermaids in Paradise is Lydia Millet's funniest book yet, tempering the sharp satire of her early career with the empathy and subtlety of her more recent novels and short stories. This is an unforgettable, mesmerizing tale, darkly comic on the surface and illuminating in its depths.
Industry Reviews
"Now that David Foster Wallace is gone, I think Lydia Millet is the American writer with the funniest, wisest grasp on how we fool ourselves... she has as good a chance as anyone to write the novel that defines our time." -- Charles Finch - Chicago Tribune "A romp with sharp teeth... a slapstick variation on Millet's abiding theme: the relationship between human beings and the natural world." -- Laura Miller - Salon "By the time I got to the third key, I had stopped writing down highlights for this review because the value of this book is greater than the sum of the eight individual keys. Not only do I believe this book can be extremely helpful to someone suffering from an eating disorder, but I believe it could be helpful for other practitioners who are not specialized in eating disorders." -- Melissa Maerz - Entertainment Weekly "Costin and Grabb support their clients so they can learn to accept and understand instead of always having to fight their illness. Their keys are clear and flexible." -- Natalie Beach - O Magazine "In 8 Keys to Recovery Costin and Grabb courageously disclose details of their own eating disorder histories, and also engage in revealing dialogue about Grabb's successful (if sometimes difficult) treatment by Costin. In doing so, they expose the most intimate challenges of living with and healing an eating disorder both personally and professionally. Costin and Grabb enlighten the reader with the knowledge they gained from failure as well as success, literally, from the inside out." -- Jane Ciabattari - BBC.com "Carolyn Costin is the first person who ever looked me in the eyes and said, You can be fully recovered from your eating disorder. In The 8 Keys of Recovery, she and Gwen Grabb say just that. Even better, they provide real wisdom and guidance on how to actually find that freedom. I highly recommend this book!" -- Publishers Weekly, Starred review "Carolyn Costin was my eating disorder therapist, and I credit her with my recovery. 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder gives the reader the same insight, inspiration, and tools that Carolyn gave to me. It's straightforward, well-written, and allows the reader to actively participate in her own recovery. I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with an eating disorder." -- Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review "[R]emarkably readable . . . . [C]ontains much that a counselor would find useful and it could form the basis for a programme that client and counselor tackled together." -- Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation "I laughed so hard all over town... leave it to Lydia Millet to capsize her human characters in aquamarine waters and upstage their honeymoon with mermaids. I am awed to know there's a mind like Millet's out there-she's a writer without limits, always surprising, always hilarious." -- Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove "Millet, with her keen sense of the absurd, brings the book to a surprising conclusion, and makes a point about corporate greed and the destruction of the environment without being heavy-handed." -- Moira Hodgson - Wall Street Journal
