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The Drowning Girl - Chapter 10

#125: Oct. - Dec. 2013 (Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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The Drowning Girl - Chapter 10

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The Drowning Girl - Chapter 10
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KayR
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Re: The Drowning Girl - Chapter 10

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Huh. Well, I would say this was a case of too much resolution.
After the marvelous crazy ride, I find this last chapter a big disappointment. It's like reading a murder mystery full of clues and red herrings, and then on the last page the author reveals that the butler had an identical twin. Too pat.
All that foreshadowing business about not expecting full resolution turns out to have been a trick to cover gaping holes in the story that are impossible to resolve. Such as, Imp utterly forgot everything about the woman who had been stalking her so obviously and for so long that it had become a joke in her workplace, and didn't recognize Eva when she found her on the roadside? And what, did Eva keep hanging out on the roadside naked and dripping wet, night after night, for Imp to happen down this road on one of her nighttime drives? And only once did Eva get picked up and taken to the psych ward? Imogene Louise Canning didn't change her name to Eva Louise Canning until after her mother's death--yet the mother's obituary listed her as E.L. Canning. I think it takes longer to get a name change than it does to get an obit in the paper...
I'm just irritated that the author did such a fantastic job opening my mind to the mental state of a schizophrenic, and then succumbed to such a tabloid-cheesy denouement. What a waste of a great beginning.
(Yes, I'm an old curmudgeon...)
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Re: The Drowning Girl - Chapter 10

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I just finished the book and...sorry to say...share in the disappointment. Like others, I was irritated at the repetition, but realized this was necessary to convey the mindset of Imp...
They look like eels, but aren't. Aren't eels, I mean.
That irritating quirk appears all over, not sure why.

Kiernan wrote "Houses Under the Sea" for a magazine earlier this year. I've only skimmed parts, but it appears to deal with Jacova Angevine and some of the same themes as the Drowning Girl. It mentions JA being fired as an academic for publishing a controversial book - I wonder if there is a parallel with Kiernan, who used to teach paleontology.
http://nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/h ... r-the-sea/

Kiernan appears in this documentary about H.P. Lovecraft.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1261900/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_1

Sorry I didn't participate more in the discussion....
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Re: The Drowning Girl - Chapter 10

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The last erotic scene (pgs 295 - 297) is quite strange, much better than the previous ones, but I could have done without the "rasping teeth". :tshutup:
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Re: The Drowning Girl - Chapter 10

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I too have finished the book, and was also very disappointed by the ending. It was almost as if the author just suddenly decided she didn't have anything else to say, and so did a quick wrap-up (I refuse to call it a resolution). Oh well, it wasn't that expensive.
Love what you do, and do what you love. Don't listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. -Ray Bradbury

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