How Not to Drown: A Novel

How Not To Drown is the fourth novel by American Professor of Creative writing and author, Jaimee Wriston. After her mother is sent to prison on a charge of voluntary manslaughter for the drowning death of her father, twelve-year-old Heaven French is sent to live with the grandmother she has never met. Amelia MacQueen isn’t quite sure how to handle this rather stocky, somewhat sullen, girl. Having never raised a daughter and done an admittedly less-than-stellar job on raising two sons, (call me) Grandmelia’s ideas of raising an almost-teen are outdated: she tries to connect with Heaven via fashion and make-up, a former model’s field of expertise, not really hearing what is important to the girl. Bullied at school by “the meanest mean girl in mean girl history”, Heaven’s desire to compete with the mean girls is not indulged, but she does prove a talented swimmer. Heaven finds greater rapport with her Uncle Daniel, a forty-two-year-old agoraphobic recluse who keeps to his bedroom, but observes the daytime world through its sounds and strategically-placed holes in his walls. From his window, he has an exclusively visual relationship with his thirty-seven-year-old neighbour, Mercy, relegated in her mother’s garage due to anger issues. Daniel tells Heaven stories of faeries, selkies and sirens from the land of their heritage, the Isle of Skye. They discuss what might have saved eleven-year-old Daniel from drowning in Hawaii, and why his younger brother Gavin, Heaven’s father, was not similarly saved, thirty years later. Amelia, meanwhile, takes every visit to Heaven’s mother, Cassiopeia in the prison as an opportunity to further her mission: to make Cassie confess to what she does not deny but claims not to remember, in fact, doesn’t want to remember, because it highlights her own loss of her beloved Gavin, something Amelia fails to acknowledge. Amelia’s ex-husband, Leo French, one-time celebrated fashion photographer, is now a chronicler of decay and has a paranoia about drones, wiretapping, and computer hacking; he can’t remember where his car is or even where he lives sometimes, but he remembers everything about Amelia, for whom he still carries a flame. He receives requests from Cassie to visit the prison: Gavin’s widow wants assistance, financial, against Amelia’s campaign, and moral inspiration. Mercy, a diner waitress with a physical deformity, shows Daniel her “Collection of Broken Things” which she wants Leo to document in photographs, to appreciate brokenness for what it is. Is a relationship between them ever possible if Daniel never leaves his room? Interspersed with these narratives is that of Maggie MacQueen, whose family were victims of the clearances on Skye, and details her crossing to America on a trade vessel, back in the mid-nineteenth Century. Maggie was lost when the ship foundered on rocks near Prince Edwards Island. Or was she? None of Wriston’s characters, as quirky as they are, is instantly appealing, but they do grow on the reader once their back stories are revealed, so patience is advised. The plot takes in a bit of magical realism and perhaps doesn’t go quite where the reader will expect. A very imaginative read This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Alcove Press.