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The Drowning Girl

Caitlín R. Kiernan

3.71 · Rating details · 4,524 ratings · 698 reviews

India Morgan Phelps--Imp to her friends--is schizophrenic. She can no longer trust her own mind, because she is convinced that her memories have somehow betrayed her, forcing her to question her very identity.

Struggling with her perception of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about an encounter with a vicious siren, or a helpless wolf that came to her as a feral girl, or ...more

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Paperback, 332 pages

Published March 6th 2012 by Roc

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Nov 29, 2014 Jack Tripper rated it it was amazing

Shelves: weird, desert-island-books, horror, fantasy

The weird tale can be difficult to sustain through the course of an entire novel, which is why it's often most successful in short form. How does an author maintain that strangeness, that otherworldliness, throughout 200-300 pages? Well, Kiernan's figured it out, though I doubt anyone could ever copy her technique here without looking like a complete rip-off artist. She uses an entirely unreliable narrator, one who is schizophrenic and constantly lies, who's experiencing parallel timelines -- on ...more

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Jan 24, 2016 Bradley rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, horror, mindfuq, 2016-shelf

This one is dark and haunting, half a tribute to falling into art so deeply that it makes love to you and murders you, and half a deep treatise on madness and skirting the far edges of normality, all while feeling very much in one's own skin.

Most of the fun is simply trying to figure out whether it's a ghost story, a Ghost Story, or the ghost of a story, disjointed and cast adrift in time and faulty memory.

It's quite the interesting maze. Parts of the later novel is dreamlike and calls on us to ...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Printable Tire rated it liked it

(I finally edited this.)

I was interested enough with the hoopla surrounding Ms. Kiernan to give one of her novels a try. And I really picked the best one, not only because it is the most recent and celebrated but also because it takes place in Providence and Rhode Island whereabouts.

In fact, the whole first half of the book is saturated with gratuitous Providence shout-outs and references. I don't know what it must be like to read this book in another place, but it's hilarious to read what are e (I finally edited this.)

I was interested enough with the hoopla surrounding Ms. Kiernan to give one of her novels a try. And I really picked the best one, not only because it is the most recent and celebrated but also because it takes place in Providence and Rhode Island whereabouts.

In fact, the whole first half of the book is saturated with gratuitous Providence shout-outs and references. I don't know what it must be like to read this book in another place, but it's hilarious to read what are essentially plugs for local businesses:

"We left the used bookstore, and briefly thought about ducking into a little junk shop in the basement next door. It's called What Cheer, as in "What Cheer, Netop?" and is supposedly the greeting Indians shouted out to Roger Williams (who founded Rhode Island) and his cohorts as he crossed the Seekonk River in seventeen thirty-whatever and such and such. "What Cheer" are magical words in Rhode Island, which is pretty ironic when you pause to consider just how bad things would go for the Narragansetts not too long after they welcomed white men into their lands. No, I wasn't thinking any of this as we stood there on the hot sidewalk trying to decide if we wanted to go down the stairs into the junk shop. They have antique postcards, vintage clothes, and huge antique apothecary cabinets. The drawers are filled with countless random, inconsequential treasures, from doorknobs to chess pieces to old political-campaign buttons. What Cheer also sells a lot of vinyl, by the way."

(Open Weekends! Actually, they're out of business now, unfortunately.)

The above illustrates the utter gratuitousness of Providence references, but it also illustrates how very pointless and plotless the book can be. And, while the author makes this "beat-around-the-bushnes" an aspect of the narrative itself, it still doesn't hide the fact that most of the book is full of Nothing Much Happenings.

The narrator can be at times too meek, other times self-pitying, self-involved, pompous and boring. She (and the author) seem to be making the story up as they go along, which is somewhat ingeniously hidden by the protagonist being such an unreliable narrator. This is used to excuse away "plot holes" or inconsistencies, but doesn't hide the fact that themes and obsessions are introduced and forgotten, then replaced by new themes from an entirely different universe. There are very lame attempts to tie them all together, but it takes more than filling up a page with names of poems to achieve cohesiveness.

The book is at its best when it is in the narrator's voice, which can achieve the excellence of a really good goth live journal entry. When other voices are attempted (serious art criticism, news articles), all semblance of another reality are thwarted.

But anyway. The stuff of truly goth-awful goth is not for me.

So, 2 stars for the book, in that I am glad I read it, and an additional star for taking place in Providence, because I will eat up anything that takes place in Providence and Rhode Island and it's fun to say, "Oh, they're over on Hope Street, I was just there five minutes ago. That reminds me, I have to go to CVS." ...more

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Mar 05, 2013 11811 (Eleven) rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2013-stoker-challenge

The quirkiness of this story grabbed my interest right from the start. About 20% into the book it started to get on my nerves. After about 50% or so, I started to hate it. There may be a bit of genius in here somewhere that I lack the intelligence or creativity to appreciate but in any case I was disappointed.

If this is worthy of any award this year, the Bram Stoker is the wrong venue. It has some dark elements but doesn't quite fit the horror genre. ...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Jason rated it it was amazing

Shelves: e-books, read-2012

5 Stars

Caitlin Kiernan is simply one of the best, the most original, and gifted writers in fiction today. She writes deep and dark horror stories and challenges you the reader as well as her many amazing protagonists to join her on a trip down the rabbit hole. Can you tell she is a real favorite of mine? I have read most of Kiernan’s work and have been taken in by her works, ever since I read The Red Tree, my first endeavor into the mysterious mind of Caitlin Kiernan.

In this book, The Drowning G ...more

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Aug 12, 2018 Lena rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, pure-crazy, stoker, dark-fantasy

“We weave necessary fictions, and sometimes they save us. Our minds, our bodies.”
- Imp
“You know now that you’ll never be sure what happened?”
- Dr. Ogilvy

Wow. So there are unreliable narrators and then there are schizophrenics. Had I never read PKD I would have been unprepared.

There are chapters where it is a Tai Chi flow of pure crazy; tangent overlapping tangent. I had never really understood the phrase ‘Keep it together.’

Kiernan cleverly draws you into the character’s predicament by ove ...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2014

There's always a siren, singing you to shipwreck. Some of us may be more susceptible than others are, but there's always a siren. It may be with us all our lives, or it may be many years or decades before we find it or it finds us. But when it does find us, if we're lucky we're Odysseus tied up to the ship's mast, hearing the song with perfect clarity, but ferried to safety by a crew whose ears have been plugged with beeswax. If we're not at all lucky, we're another sort of sailor stepping off ...more

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Mar 26, 2015 Jaro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: c-horror, t-werewolves, favorite-audiobooks

The Drowning Girl is a hypnotic, beautiful ghost story I’m going to write a ghost story now set in Providence, Rhode Island. In New England, in Lovecraft country. The narrator, India Morgan Phelps, Imp, is a young artist diagnosed with disorganized schizophrenia and who (in parenthesis) claims to be a distant relative to Lovecraft, but she doesn’t much care for his stories His prose is too florid and I find his stories silly , but he was right about that thing about man’s greatest and old The Drowning Girl is a hypnotic, beautiful ghost story I’m going to write a ghost story now set in Providence, Rhode Island. In New England, in Lovecraft country. The narrator, India Morgan Phelps, Imp, is a young artist diagnosed with disorganized schizophrenia and who (in parenthesis) claims to be a distant relative to Lovecraft, but she doesn’t much care for his stories His prose is too florid and I find his stories silly , but he was right about that thing about man’s greatest and oldest fear being fear of the unknown. Imp does not quite live in her time, rather she lives, due to who she is, a little bit outside of time, which becomes obvious when she meets (view spoiler) Abalyn, a transsexual computer game reviewer who confuses Imp (and me) with her talk of EBM, synthpop, shoegaze, japanoise and acid house. Imp does not much care for the music Abalyn plays for her but she’s captivated by one song by a band called Radiohead one of their songs had something about a siren in it, and shipwrecks . More than a ghost story, perhaps, this is a story about sirens, who hypnotize, sing and lull people into the ocean, or into the Japanese suicide forest Aokigahara. It is a story that reminds me of Tim Buckley’s "Song to the Siren" as This Mortal Coil does it. It is also the story of Eva Canning who is or is not a wolf, whom Imp finds naked by the roadside one night (view spoiler) And about Phillip George Staltonstall, one of Kiernans fictitious nineteenth century painters, a late American follower to the pre-Raphaelites who has painted The Drowning Girl, a painting that haunts the story and Imp the nude woman stands in the murky river . It is a story about ghosts, mermaids and werewolves, but Kiernan keeps a poetic tone and a high literary standard throughout, and she very elegantly balances the psychological and the poetic with the supernatural. Not too much as to make it tactless urban fantasy, but not too sparse as to put it in the swamp of literary mainstream. It is perhaps most of all a story about how Imp tells her ghost story, how she folds it in and over itself into a non-linear maze. How she tries to find her way in it in order to understand, and find the courage to trust, what has happened to her. She corrects, repeats, falls, gets up again. What really haunts me after finishing is Imps voice, her clear, strong and beautiful voice; at the same time confident and searching, simultaneously cohesive and destabilizing. The novel is dedicated to Peter Straub master of the ghost story .

...more

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Apr 24, 2013 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary, paranormal, horror, mysteries-potboilers-thrillers

Only 300+ pages, but the themes, image echoes, literary and metafictional references are too numerous to catalog. This is a writer's masterpiece for other writers and literature majors. I don't mean to scare or challenge you; be warned it's not a true genre or other entertainment category, but I'd call it as coming closest to a literary gothic. There are no 'dictionary' words or overly gruesome scenarios, but it does cover ghostly mysteries possibly manifesting because of past cult suicides.

Indi Only 300+ pages, but the themes, image echoes, literary and metafictional references are too numerous to catalog. This is a writer's masterpiece for other writers and literature majors. I don't mean to scare or challenge you; be warned it's not a true genre or other entertainment category, but I'd call it as coming closest to a literary gothic. There are no 'dictionary' words or overly gruesome scenarios, but it does cover ghostly mysteries possibly manifesting because of past cult suicides.

India Morgan Phelps, nicknamed Imp, is a diagnosed schizophrenic. She works as a waitress and she is dependable except when she forgets to take her meds. Her aunt and psychiatrist watch over her, but she mostly takes care of herself, her car and her apartment. Despite her meds, she does not trust everything she sees and hears as she frequently experiences delusions. She has an unusual year and decides to write down what has occurred, whether it really happened or not. As the chapters spin out her story, it becomes obvious Imp is an unreliable narrator of the first rank, which she freely admits. Although she works as a waitress, she actually is an artist, a painter of images.

Spontaneous and impulsive, she picks up a woman who ends up living with her as her girlfriend and lover, Abalyn. In time, Imp learns Abalyn is a transsexual, but given that some of Imp's obsessions are mermaids, werewolves and ghosts, she has no problem with this. Imp has another, more serious problem -she believes a naked woman, Eva Canning, who she also picked up one night is a ghost of a suicide, who led a cult into the sea to drown decades before. Eva seems to change her form - she becomes a wolf, then a siren. Abalyn meets Eva when Imp brings her home, but other incidents that Imp also experiences do not appear to Abalyn. Something about Eva triggers Imp into a vision quest of sorts, a mix of delusions and reality she finds difficult to sort out. She begins this book journaling what she thinks happened, but off her meds and hallucinating, Imp knows she cannot trust the information she uncovers about Eva. The story is disturbingly non-linear as well, jumping forward and back in time, including incidents real and unreal, of which Imp resignedly confesses her awareness.

Imp feels the heart of the mystery is connected somehow to a painting she returns to again and again - Saltonstall's The Drowning Girl .

Who is the Drowning Girl?

Atmospheric and slowly engrossing, each time I picked up this book was a treat of beautifully created sentences and weirdly beautiful/nightmare twinning images. I believe the story Imp experiences is based on reality, but I do not think she is interacting with a ghost. To me, it was more like a meeting between two nice, but insane, people suffering delusions which collide. The problem for the reader is to pick who are the crazy two people, and whose reality happened, and which scenes are the delusions. Of course, a meta-point is that this is a fictional read written by an author called Imp, in the end, which is the only open joke in the book. ...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Ryandake rated it really liked it

it's been a while since i've been this flummoxed by a book.

it's a ghost story, a mermaid story, a siren story, a wolf story, a crazy person story... all wrapped up in one. maybe that's why it's so hard to grasp--where it's not mythological, it's psychological, or maybe mythopoetic.

all of the above, i can handle. even in one book. it's a stretch, no doubt--this is not a fishhook book, where you get nabbed by the hook and pulled along. you have to do some serious swimming against the current here ...more

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Jun 18, 2013 Bark | Ladies Of Horror Fiction rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, audiobook

If you pick this up thinking it’s a charming fantasy or even a gothic horror novel you may be disappointed. Like Kiernan’s The Red Tree (which I loved), it has eerie leanings but at its core it’s more an intimate and unflinching look at a person’s struggle with insanity. It revisits several of the same themes but it takes them further and, as much as I tried and wanted to love this one just as much, in the end it just didn’t work for me.

Told in first person, India (Imp) is the unreliable narrato If you pick this up thinking it’s a charming fantasy or even a gothic horror novel you may be disappointed. Like Kiernan’s The Red Tree (which I loved), it has eerie leanings but at its core it’s more an intimate and unflinching look at a person’s struggle with insanity. It revisits several of the same themes but it takes them further and, as much as I tried and wanted to love this one just as much, in the end it just didn’t work for me.

Told in first person, India (Imp) is the unreliable narrator. She starts the book saying it will be a “ghost story with a mermaid and a werewolf”. And though it does visit those themes, this book is really a memoir written by Imp as she attempts to maneuver her way through her memories which may or may not be real because she suffers from schizophrenia. She often admits to lying and the reader is left to piece together what is truth and what is a lie.

I fell into Imp’s story in the early chapters as Imp recalled her past, explains of the madness that has been passed down to her and tells the story of how she met her lover Abalyn. But as the story progressed and drifted off into many side stories and tangents I found myself drifting away. Somewhere at the midway point I didn’t feel as if I could trust anything Imp was telling me and I also felt quite lost and never really regained my footing. Imp admits she is confused and though I sympathized with her, I also felt frustrated and confused trying to decipher and make sense of her thoughts. This is a book that doesn’t go down easy and may take further readings to comprehend. At least it was that way for me. As much as I love Kiernan’s lyrical and dream-like writing, I have to admit that this book didn’t work for me once I hit the midway mark. It makes me almost sad to admit that. Maybe someday I’ll give it another go and maybe then I’ll be able to wrap my head around it all. Or maybe not.

I listened to this as an unabridged audio read by Suzy Jackson who does a great job with the material. She manages to sound young but not too young and feels genuinely at home in the character of Imp. There aren’t too many characters in Imp’s world but she manages to give them all a unique voice that suits each character. ...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Terence rated it liked it

Recommended to Terence by: Caitlin Kiernan fan

Shelves: horror-gothic

The Drowning Girl is a difficult book to characterize. Baldly, it’s the story of India Morgan Phelps (aka “Imp”), a highly functional schizophrenic whose life is turned upside down by the appearance of Eva Canning, who may or may not be a ghost, a werewolf, a mermaid or a stalker. If you don’t like unreliable narrators, ambiguous (and sometimes downright confusing) plots and – in the end – not really knowing “what happened,” then you will loathe this book. If you can wrap your mind around the id ...more

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Aug 04, 2013 Lee rated it liked it

Shelves: paranormal

Story: 3.5/5

1: Being Vague, rambling plot with no little believable storyline
5: Ripping yarn, clever, thought provoking

The drowning girl is like nothing I have ever read before. Written in a style that was very different to my usual choice of books. In a nutshell the story is about a young woman called Imp, who has some mental issues that seem to be genetic from her mothers side. There was a period of her life where things got kind of scary. To help with her rehabilitation she decides to wri ...more

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Aug 22, 2014 Carson rated it did not like it

Disappointing twaddle.
A promising start, but it doesn't build or develop in any way. It reads like a work developed during a Creative Writing course; pretentious and self-conscious.
As for the reams and reams of "this is what it's really like to have a mental illness" stream-of-consciousness passages; oh puh-lease.
Give me Janet Frame any day.
...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Maya rated it did not like it

Well, The Drowing Girl was not an enjoyable read for me. I don't hate the book, don't have any strong feelings about it, but I “didn't like” it, hence the 1 star rating. The book is well written and I probably would have given it 2 stars, if there had been more of a payoff at the end, but there isn't, so the book wasn't an "ok" read for me.

Overall, less would have been more and there were too many elements mixed together, without them being sufficiently relevant to the story.

First of all, India Well, The Drowing Girl was not an enjoyable read for me. I don't hate the book, don't have any strong feelings about it, but I “didn't like” it, hence the 1 star rating. The book is well written and I probably would have given it 2 stars, if there had been more of a payoff at the end, but there isn't, so the book wasn't an "ok" read for me.

Overall, less would have been more and there were too many elements mixed together, without them being sufficiently relevant to the story.

First of all, India is an "unreliable narrator". Since she is schizophrenic, she has problems distinguishing between what's real and what's not, so she has false memories and she will sometimes tell you things as facts, even though she only imagined them, which she may point out to you later, or may not. This could make for an intriguing mystery, but I don't feel like it was used in any interesting way. Mostly, I found India's voice either boring or annoying and India as a character quite unlikable.

Also, while reading, India's actual schizophrenia doesn't stand out that much, because the reader most of the time doesn't know if she has told "a lie" or not and can only guess. This is not a criticism. It makes sense, since India herself usually cannot recognize these things, so they shouldn't stand out in her narration. At the time, though, this means that her other (mental) problems take the center stage. She is not only schizophrenic, but also suicidal (which may or may not be caused by her schizophrenia) and has obsessive–compulsive disorders (again may or may not be related), and these are much more present throughout her narration.

She also has a creepy obsession with death, be it murders, suicides, mass-suicides or mass-dying of animals, which may or may not be caused by the suicides of her mother and grandmother, and likes to explain many, many stories related to such occurrences and often in macabre details. Suicide Forest, Suicide Song, Werewolf Murder, Shark Murder, Mermaid Murder, Siren Murder, Red-Riding Hood Murder ... For me, all this talk about death, murder and often romanticized suicide, was the most prominent part of India's narration and therefore of the whole story and it was very tiring to read. It felt like every second page was about death.

And then there's all the other stuff. Seemingly endless talk about art, art history, art criticism, local and not so local history and urban legends, supernatural sex and weird sex talk, Greek, Japanese, French, Mythology and Fairytales, transgender girlfriend, two not-so-short short stories written by India and oh right, the ghost story. With a ghost, who may or may not be a ghost or two or a wolf or a mermaid or a siren with whom India is in love or not. It might have been a supernatural happening or it might have been all in her head.

In short, the whole story of The Drowning Girl is a big "maybe this happened, or maybe not" and you're left with that. For me, there were too many things that did not come together in the end, some, like the transgender seemed just thrown in for good measure and India's mental and family issues were not explored enough to actually matter. The narration and the story were not intriguing or mysterious, but boring and tiring. Maybe it's worth analyzing more profoundly and then the pieces will fit together more neatly. Or maybe not.

This book is for people who enjoy very vague stories, where you can make up your own mind as to what it all means. ...more

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Jan 01, 2012 All Things Urban Fantasy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed-by-julia

By the purest definition of the rating, THE DROWNING GIRL is indisputably 5bats. A few chapters in, I was already reading passages aloud to friends. I already knew who would be receiving my own copy, budgeting for who I could send others. This had less to do with any enjoyment of the book than a sense of haunting that perfectly mirrors the main character’s own experiences. Does anyone else see what I see? Am I crazy, am I alone?

THE DROWNING GIRL introduces concepts and stories and images that a By the purest definition of the rating, THE DROWNING GIRL is indisputably 5bats. A few chapters in, I was already reading passages aloud to friends. I already knew who would be receiving my own copy, budgeting for who I could send others. This had less to do with any enjoyment of the book than a sense of haunting that perfectly mirrors the main character’s own experiences. Does anyone else see what I see? Am I crazy, am I alone?

THE DROWNING GIRL introduces concepts and stories and images that are impossible to shake, and the thought of being able to discuss them with others is comforting. Even more so, the line between fantasy and reality is blurred more in this book than any other I’ve read. Which of the “facts” relayed by Imp are from our world, which from hers? While the fantasy elements of this story are arguably the product of Imp’s illness, the way she expresses her story is so beautifully crafted as to make me doubt even that. This charismatic but unreliable narrator, like any true artist, is able to convey the feeling of her own insanity without ever giving me the sense that I had unraveled it's mystery. As I read, trying to match dates and references to reality, I realized I was falling into Imp's own habits, desperately trying to impose order on fragmented and flawed mind. Like Russian dolls, stories and paintings and quotes nest themselves into the narrative in a way that is as enthralling as it is inscrutable.

Kiernan creates a new definition for “haunting”, while at the same time infecting me with the same. With so much discussion of different types of art (short stories, paintings, sculpture, content...), THE DROWNING GIRL delivers it’s own message with a slight of the hand that is devastating. What part of this book implanted this haunted feeling? What page, what paragraph, has left me so shaken? Equal parts INFINITE JEST and ghost story, though THE DROWNING GIRL was not a restful read, nor the type of entertainment I normally look for in fantasy, it is most certainly unforgettable.

Sexual Content: References to sex, descriptions of oral sex and sex toys. ...more

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Sep 22, 2015 Bill rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Lovers of psycho-horror

Recommended to Bill by: Group read

Shelves: horror-occult-dark-fiction

I finished this last night. I did not really enjoy it, though I think it a well done novel and well-researched. I googled a lot of the names and such and surprised how much was real. I do like novels that cause me to do this.

I'd consider it a PsychoHorror as well as an exploration of schizophrenia with obsessive tendencies. From a medical point of view it is a good description of thought disorders, especially those with confused reality—psychosis. Perhaps the most telling part was when Imp went ...more

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Jul 02, 2015 Absinthe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: queer, general-fiction

The only adequate words to describe this story have already been written by Caitlin R. Kiernan and they are known collectively as The Drowning Girl. I cannot be more sincere in saying that this book is a unique experience that haunts the reader who dares to open the cover. The fabric of reality is always warping and melting and molding into something else and its fascinating because ultimately it leaves the reader to decide for themselves what is and isn't real. ...more

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May 16, 2020 Tyler J Gray added it

Shelves: dnf, unhaul, horror, 2010s, lgbtqia

28 pages in, one chapter. I can't do it. The rambling, the unreliable narrator, and looking at reviews...the not knowing. It's driving me up a wall already. I struggled through that first chapter, and that's not something I could say before. It seems it's not my kinda book. I'm sorry. ...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Kendare Blake rated it it was amazing

Everything Kiernan touches turns to gold. THE DROWNING GIRL plunges the depths. Just read it. It's an experience. ...more

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Dec 10, 2014 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 stars

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Jun 17, 2013 Mogsy (MMOGC) rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, paranormal, ghosts, horror, magical-realism

http://bibliosanctum.blogspot.com/201...

This novel was our book club's choice for July, the theme of which was "Nominees for the 2012 Nebula Awards". Though this book hadn't been on my to-read list, nor had I a clue what it was going to be about, I'd looked forward to checking it out.

The Drowning Girl, described as dark fantasy and horror mixed with strong elements of magical realism, stars protagonist India Morgan Phelps, or Imp to those around her. Imp also has schizophrenia. As such, much of http://bibliosanctum.blogspot.com/201...

This novel was our book club's choice for July, the theme of which was "Nominees for the 2012 Nebula Awards". Though this book hadn't been on my to-read list, nor had I a clue what it was going to be about, I'd looked forward to checking it out.

The Drowning Girl, described as dark fantasy and horror mixed with strong elements of magical realism, stars protagonist India Morgan Phelps, or Imp to those around her. Imp also has schizophrenia. As such, much of the novel's themes are centered around the nature of reality and human perception, exploring the duality of fact vs. fiction or truth vs. myth.

The book gets a bit difficult to describe beyond that, because of certain factors like the writing style or the jumble of ideas within. Imp, being an unreliable narrator, had much to do with this. Suffice to say, The Drowning Girl is a ghost story viewed through the lens of mental illness, and is a rather provocative yet critical look into our understanding of consciousness and perception.

The way this story is narrated, which I initially fretted over when I first heard about it, actually turned out to be much less distracting than I thought. I won't deny that at times it could be frustrating -- indeed, by design the book lacks "flow", and there were a couple chapters where I just wanted to grab my head and scream, "I just can't bloody do this anymore!" Imp will also sometimes go on these long, rambling tangents and talk in circles. But still, it wasn't that bad. For the most part, I think I was able follow the main thread.

As a literary horror novel or ghost story, however, it was a very subdued haunting and in my opinion fell a bit flat. Reading this, I became so absorbed by the intricacies and inner workings of Imp's mind that everything else in the story became white noise, almost irrelevant. Which, I suppose one could argue, is the point. Whether or not it was what the author intended, I personally viewed this book as more of an in-depth character study of Imp rather than an actual tale of the paranormal.

In the end, I can't say this book was my cup of tea. In spite of that, however, I can recognize its literary merits, and not the very least of those is the the bold and disjointed way the author chose to tell the story. This stylistic choice which at times annoyed the hell out me is also at the same time what I felt was the book's greatest strength. From my time as an occupational therapy student working in an outpatient mental health clinic, one thing that's always stayed with me is the constant struggle people with schizophrenia have with the breakdown of thought processes and their connection to what can perceived. Reading Imp's memoir brought me back to all the people I've met and worked with, and she feels very real in that sense. So while the writing style may be unconventional, it's also very realistic.

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...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Randolph rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, fiction

What if you were insane, but actually haunted by a real ghost? I'm not sure why nobody has ever really tried this before (Yellow Wallpaper doesn't count because it always calls the narrator's perceptions and mental stability into question).

Drenched in philosophy, history, psychology, science, and autobiography Kiernan uses her encyclopedic knowledge to weave a tale so dense it is sometimes difficulty to see where she is going but fascinating nevertheless. Imp seems to be the ultimate unreliable What if you were insane, but actually haunted by a real ghost? I'm not sure why nobody has ever really tried this before (Yellow Wallpaper doesn't count because it always calls the narrator's perceptions and mental stability into question).

Drenched in philosophy, history, psychology, science, and autobiography Kiernan uses her encyclopedic knowledge to weave a tale so dense it is sometimes difficulty to see where she is going but fascinating nevertheless. Imp seems to be the ultimate unreliable narrator, but is she? And there seems to be a narrator's narrator. The plot, such as it is, twists and turns, never proceeding linearly for very long. Kiernan, through her narrator, even comments on this fact. Real life rarely proceeds linearly. It only seems that way in retrospect due to what we choose to accept and discard in the telling/remembering.

History writing proceeds similarly since it almost always depends as much on what we discard or ignore in the telling as it does in what we conclude to accept. This is why we largely make the same mistakes over and over again even though the adage that "those who don't study history it are doomed to repeat" Study of history is almost useless as a prediction of the future because the distillation we make of history rarely resembles the plethora of currently known and unknown facts and "truths." The now almost never looks like the history we think we know. Otherwise, how can half the people think higher taxes are bad and half think they are good. One perspective must be "true" at this point in time but who knows for sure? Even when we are aware of the facts we accept and discard we cannot decide (if we are honest with ourselves), much less when we don't know, what we don't know.

And Imp cannot make any sense of the past even though she studies, reflects, and writes. She has no idea where she is going and her past is no guide because she cannot decide what to accept and what to discard. She's not even sure when she is sane (Is she? maybe she is hyper-sane) and even has trouble deciding whether what she is writing is fact or truth. The distinction is essential. Truth does not necessarily imply factual and a fact doesn't always imply truth. Now we are back to what to accept and what to discard and our own faulty senses and memories and thinking just muddles the situation more. Now add to that that the supernatural is real. Anyone would lose their sanity. ...more

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Oct 18, 2018 Jessica Woodbury rated it really liked it

Shelves: lgbtq, horror

I was a little wary of this book at first, I don't like the subgenre of "is there a ghost or am I crazy" as it can portray mental health in a really messed up light. But THE DROWNING GIRL is not asking that question at all. It simply asks what the impact of the supernatural is on a person who has mental health issues. Our protagonist, Imp, writes in the first person and chooses to tell her own story, with full awareness of the places in her story where she is not entirely reliable and where her I was a little wary of this book at first, I don't like the subgenre of "is there a ghost or am I crazy" as it can portray mental health in a really messed up light. But THE DROWNING GIRL is not asking that question at all. It simply asks what the impact of the supernatural is on a person who has mental health issues. Our protagonist, Imp, writes in the first person and chooses to tell her own story, with full awareness of the places in her story where she is not entirely reliable and where her attempts to cope with the inexplicable have led her to create narratives to make it all easier to process. Imp never suggests that she didn't see what she saw or that there isn't a supernatural force in her life, she just can't always be sure of the details.

I'm not saying this book helps with stigma around mental illness exactly. Imp certainly seems to feel she's doomed often, especially given the genetic piece of her own illness and how it played out horribly with other members of her family. (ALL the content warnings for suicide.) There are times when she's more optimistic, but there are plenty of times when she's not. It's not a book that's going to make you feel warm and fuzzy about mental illness because you have a first person narrator who's acutely aware of their own struggles and isn't trying to downplay them.

As far as its place in horror, this is more disturbing than scary. In particular Imp brings up several paintings (that are not real, but if you google them thinking they might be you'll get some fan art results that might just make you think they are real for a while, not like this happened to me nope not at all) and art works that may put some disturbing pictures in your head. (One work based on the "Black Dahlia murder is described in particularly horrific detail.)

This is a very queer book, Imp is a lesbian whose love interest is a trans woman, Abalyn. There's not much "Trans 101" here, and Abalyn is the kind of trans woman who refers to herself as a "tranny," which isn't uncommon but means she isn't the kind of character who's going to give you a delicate introduction to being trans. But I assume Kiernan's readers are coming to her precisely because of the queerness of her books, as I do. Once we know Abalyn's gender, it mostly fades into the background and Abalyn is allowed to exist as a fully-formed character. For those of you who are wondering if this is a Kill the Queers book, (view spoiler) ...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Nicky rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, horror, fairytales, queer, mystery

The germ of this review comes from a discussion thread about it. I don't think I've borrowed anyone else's insights, but I'll freely confess I was confused for much of this book and therefore very probably suggestible. I just finished it -- I stayed away from the thread entirely until I got chance to read The Drowning Girl, because I knew from reading The Red Tree that I'd find it frustrating, but ultimately rewarding, to go it alone. I had wikipedia and google open, fact-checking the allusions ...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Kate O'Hanlon rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lgbt, horror

Kiernan's last novel The Red Tree impressed me mightily but ultimately did not win me over. I have been vindicated in my decision to give her another go. All the technical expertise, authenticity and stunning command over a deep and complex plot that was displayed in The Red Tree is out in force again but in The Drowning Girl Kiernan also brings something extra (a more likeable protagonist? a more compelling mythos? a more satisfying ending? all of this?) that made this novel one I could love as ...more

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Aug 01, 2013 Gail rated it it was amazing

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

The fact that this all made sense to me, does that make me insane? I loved Imp. Such a beautiful character. Being inside her head was an amazing experience. Although the night I finished reading the book, I had nightmares, reliving monsters of my child hood. Was that related? Who knows.

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Jul 29, 2013 David Sven rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Probably because I enjoyed discussing aspects of the book in a group setting more than I enjoyed the actual book.

So what sort of book is it?
Well it might be a ghost story. It may have some horror elements. It might be factual - or it might just be true... or both or neither. Do I sound like a crazy person? That's because this book is told in the first person by someone who considers themselves insane - though her psychiatrist doesn't like using I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Probably because I enjoyed discussing aspects of the book in a group setting more than I enjoyed the actual book.

So what sort of book is it?
Well it might be a ghost story. It may have some horror elements. It might be factual - or it might just be true... or both or neither. Do I sound like a crazy person? That's because this book is told in the first person by someone who considers themselves insane - though her psychiatrist doesn't like using that word. In fact the whole book could be considered part of India Morgan Phelp's or Imp's therapy. She then proceeds to tell her story of how she is haunted by a painting. Or it might be her telling of her descent into the abyss of madness. Either way the reader is transported into the mind of a "crazy" person who recounts the events of her haunting in non linear fashion.

Part of the story is how she met a woman named Eva Canning - but she has two different versions of her first encounter with Eva - One that takes place in July and one in November - both accounts she insist are true. And away we go down the rabbit hole. We also get a couple of short stories that Imp recounts writing - one about a mermaid and one about a wolf or werewolf - but both these stories flow into her "reality" and become part of her haunting. It's then up to the reader to try and disassemble the story to try and decide if any part of it is true or if none of it is true or whatever. In that regard it's a little like Among Others - even though unlike this book I didn't finish that story.

One of the things I could relate to personally in the story was how mental illness affects the lives of family and friends who have to watch the person they love breaking down. The anger, the frustration, the lack of understanding, the feeling of helplessness the grieving. I have a sister who went through a breakdown in her teens and things were pretty intense for a while.
The thing I had trouble relating to was the gender issues of Imp's transgender lover, Abelyn. It's just too foreign to my own way of thinking and a little uncomfortable to read - but I could relate to Abelyn's response to Imp's mental illness and while it's easy to judge some of Abelyn's reactions and decisions in that regard...I get it.

Though the surreal experience and mystery of the book appealed to me initially, the novelty wore off. I found myself in a place where I trusted nothing in the narrative nor believed that this would change and as such found myself becoming disinterested in the story. So I probably wasn't paying attention as much as I should have been. The end does have a twist that caused me to question my previous assumptions of the story but I hadn't been paying enough attention to get the full impact. Perhaps I would benefit from a reread.

I listened to this on Audible and the narrator Suzy Jackson was a good choice for the audio I think. Very easy to listen to.

2.5 stars

...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, brains, queer

I'm still struggling with a review of this book. Imp is a fabulous, fascinating narrator. She explains in the opening chapter that she has schizophrenia. This makes the entire story suspect. What is truth? What is fact? Is it possible for something to be true without being factual? Two of Imp's own short stories become chapters of the book, but they are part of her own processing of reality. Her ghost story is peppered with references to paintings and painters and writers who may or may not exis ...more

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Feb 09, 2013 John McNee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bram-stoker-nominated-novels

I moved into a new place at the end of last year. The bare walls are dotted throughout with picture hooks, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for things to hang on them. However, thus far I’ve only bought one piece of art - a framed print of a painting by Olga Noes titled 'Gently Lain Down'.

It’s a picture of a drowning girl. Or a mermaid. Or siren. All of the above or neither. She has long blonde hair and calm, pale eyes, staring out from the bottom of a pond, the water of which is so still it’s in ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Creatures, Creatu...: May 2020 Group Read: The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan	26	32	May 29, 2020 08:42PM
Nerds & Encrenque...: The Drowning Girl (Ago/2018)	5	22	Sep 24, 2018 05:58PM
What do you think happened?	5	102	May 15, 2014 01:58PM
SciFi and Fantasy...: The Drowning Girl, by Caitlín R. Kiernan - Feb 2014	6	48	Feb 11, 2014 01:48AM

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About Caitlín R. Kiernan

Caitlín R. Kiernan

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Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan (born 26 May 1964) is the author of science fiction and dark fantasy works, including ten novels; many comic books; and more than two hundred published short stories, novellas, and vignettes. She is also the author of scientific papers in the field of paleontology.

(from Wikipedia)