Before the Edmund Fitzgerald there was the Carl D. Bradley, the Willaim B. Davok, the Betty Hedger, the American Sailor and many more...
In 1959 the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to international commerce creating a problem for seaport towns bordering the Great Lakes. Within the first year over a thousand barges and tankers from all over the world arrived at these seaports to unload, re-outfit and reload. While waiting, the crew, that had been at sea for weeks, went ashore looking for fun and companionship. Restaurants, bars, pool halls, rooming houses, tattoo parlors, and rumors of other - less savory - forms of entertainment sprang up in the blocks surrounding the commercial docks. Those parts of town acquired a deservedly terrible reputation.
When Clair Wagner begins college in Port Presque Isle she dreams of meeting a "handsome sailor with the constellations of the Northern Seas in his eyes". Into her life comes Pio, a beautiful Italian fisherman, who dreams of life on the big lakes under the aurora borealis. She meets Gary, the dashing son of a wealthy shipping magnate, who introduces her to Canal Street where she encounters The Old Mermaid Inn, a tavern that, as Gary tells her, "deserves its reputation".
But The Old Mermaid Inn, with its giant painting of a seductive mermaid, is home to some fascinating people including Tessie, the owner and original mermaid, and the intriguing Baptiste, a Breton mariner injured in a shipwreck, who earns his living as a musician.
With Pio, Clair discovers passion, with Gary she gains entry into the world of the commercial waterfront, and with Baptiste she discovers all-consuming love. But as her relationship with Baptiste grows she discovers he is far more complex and mysterious than she could imagine. He has secrets and his secrets will alter her life forever.
The Old Mermaid's Tale weaves a lush romance, filled with folklore, legends, shipwrecks, violence, traditions,and enduring love, that pays homage to the role of storytelling in our lives.
Excerpt
Priests decry the pleasures of the flesh. And perhaps there is merit in that for when flesh is merely pleasure the soul withdraws. Can a woman's flesh atone for a man? Can a man's flesh fulfill a woman? Only if we know that we are searchers ... voyagers toward heaven. The soul, they say, is divine and the flesh is iniquity. But I am a musician and I ask this - without the wood and strings of the violin, where would the sonata find form?
- from the Prologue of The Old Mermaid's Tale
Professional Reviews
Ingeborg Lauterstein, author of Vienna Girl and The Water Castle
I gobbled up this novel. It is enticing in the style of Fielding. The details are fresh and ring true. Lavish and exuberant, it keeps the reader interested from beginning to end.
Lawrence Jordan, compiler of Tolstoy’s Where Love Is, There God Is Also
ravo! This is good, very good. These characters are people who will always live inside of me. I lingered near the end of the book, not wanting it to end. I love the way the story plays with fantasy and reality. Myth and the real. There is wonder and awe and the all-compellingness of love. Here's to The Old Mermaid's Tale, may it enliven the hearts and minds of many, many reader, for many, many years to come . . .
I was totally captivated by Clair Wagner, the storyteller of Valentine's lyrical novel, The Old Mermaid's Tale.
The story is set in a 1960's Lake Erie town. It's Clair's coming-of-age tale mixed with two love stories: Clair and Baptiste sandwiched between Clair and Pio.
Valentine sprinkles her book with delicious folklore tidbits: Baptiste's Breton sea-lore, Lake Erie seamen tales, and tales and folk music from the early sixties. The setting evokes memories of the unique life of each town before chain stores and hotels took over.
The characters are full-bodied. Sal, Baptiste, Tessie, Pio: they all deserve their own books. Valentine teased me with glimpses of their lives outside of the confines of this tale, and she left me with a longing to know more.
I was afraid that this would be too much of a "girly" book for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was sorry when I finished it. I'm looking forward to more tales from Valentine.
A teenage boy struggling with the coming-of-age issues of sexuality, religion, and peer approval is overwhelmed, but soldiers on. After several years, he comes to understand the family forces that have left him so deeply troubled, and the process of
My second book is about a boy who has Asperger's Syndrome and is bullied to the point to where he shoots up his school. I have divided the excerpts from it into three parts: Before, during and after the shooting.
