The Shape of Water - Softcover

Spollen, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0738711012 ISBN 13: 9780738711010

Publisher: Flux, 2009

Synopsis

"I discovered windows one afternoon and after that, nothing was ever the same." According to 15-year-old Magdalena's mother, the world is strange, beautiful, and watery-full of secrets and discoveries known only to mother and daughter. But when her mother dies suspiciously, it becomes an arid world of anxiety, sexual confusion, and desperate loneliness, where an imaginary family of bickering fish torment her. Magda's only outlet is the beautiful but destructive fires she starts in the marshes near her house. As her father and aunt try to pull her into a mundane world of school, schedules, and stepmothers, the voices of the fish in her head tempt her toward insanity. Magda must plot a course between her mother's fatal madness and her father's soul-destroying normalcy. The Shape of Water is a darkly lyrical and surprising tapestry of mundane and imaginative worlds. Magda untangles family secrets, struggles to cope with profound loss, and finally discovers a stable place in the world-without compromising herself.

About this title

Synopsis:

'I had come to know silence well during those months after my mother died. When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, but with weight, exactly like water.' Magda's mother always said the world was full of strange and beautiful secrets only the two of them could see. But now she's gone and Magda's world is flooded with anxiety and loneliness - and maybe, madness. As an imaginary family of bickering fish begins to torment her, Magda's only outlet is starting beautiful but destructive fires in the marshes near her house. "The Shape of Water" is a darkly lyrical and surprising tapestry of the mundane and the surreal, in which Magda begins to untangle her family's secrets and search for a stable place in the world.

About the Author:

Anne Spollen is the mother of three children. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals and have been nominated for Pushcart prizes. The Shape of Water is her first novel for teenagers. It began as a short story in Orchid: a Literary Review. She lives in New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Flux
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0738711012
• ISBN 13: 9780738711010
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312