Caught in a Still Place

by Jonathan Lerner

People came to Cape Harrier, at the end of a two-lane on Florida's swamp coast, to escape society. Now society is ravaged by ecological crisis and unnamed disease. The few survivors must pull themselves together and keep living. The Cape is benign enough. But are the survivors strong enough? Jaydie is competent - but distracted, unreachable. Her young daughter Sylvia has been rendered mute by all the trauma. Elderly Miss Audrey fades in and out. Julian - the narrator - luxuriates in the new solitude, but still seethes at his lover Richard, who ran away. The fragile balance is shaken when Julian and Jaydie become sexually involved - and lost friends suddenly turn up. Part prediction, part parable, Caught in a Still Place affirms possibility, even after breathtaking disaster. "Lerner breaks the mold," says Booklist. "Candid, understated, self-effacing, funny, as stripped down as the empty world."

Genres: Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1990

About the author

When Jonathan Lerner's first novel Caught in a Still Place was published, Booklist said, “Lerner breaks the mold. Candid, understated, self-effacing, funny, as stripped down as the emptied world."

Caught in a Still Place describes a dystopian future when a group of people on an obscure Florida island survive a mysterious plague.

Lerner's other books are the novel Alex Underground and the memoir Swords in the Hands of Children. Both deal with his experiences in the radical movement of the Sixties, and the challenges of doing so as a young gay man. His novel Lily Narcissus is about an American expat family in Asia in the Vietnam War era.

He is also an award-winning journalist focusing on travel, architecture and environment. His work has run in The New York Times, Metropolis, Travel+Leisure, Men's Journal, Modern Maturity and elsewhere, and he is a contributing editor at Landscape Architecture Magazine.

He lives with his husband in New York's Hudson Valley.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did. I think the shortness of the book did not allow for the character development that was necessary for the reader to care about anyone other than the two main characters. The events in the book were very abrupt and thus, too coincidental and not believable, frankly. Why does everyone who has been away just happen to show back up on the same day? Why does the pined after lover show up the very next day after a confession of new love? Too pat. What is the mysterious disease? Why did the story end the way it did - another abruptness that made me want to throw the book across the room. Gah!

[JoAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short novel so much I bought a copy for my cousin for Christmas! For readers interested in environmental fiction, literary fiction, and poignant, reflection, Caught In A Still Place delivers on all points. This novel deserves a come-back.

The story revolves around a small community, reeling from some kind of environmental and social fall out. The world has come to an end. Not the end, for people continue to live, though not as they used to. For this small enclave of neighbors in Florida, they are learning to manage. This is the tale of how they begin to navigate the same needs and desires in new circumstances, new contexts; humanity has changed, humanity remains the same. This is a story about how everything and nothing changes.

As a reader, I am left wanting more — but I do not think this is a detraction. Rather, this left me feeling immersed in the lives of its characters. I felt like the characters must feel at the end of each day: a little hopeful, mostly uncertain, but inevitably alive.