When We Believed in Mermaids: A Novel

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Josie thrived on drama the way my parents did. She had both my father’s enormous personality and my mother’s beauty, though in Josie, the combination became something extraordinary. Unique. I can’t count the number of times people drew and photographed and painted her, men and women, and how often they fell in love. I always thought she would be a movie star. I lift the Mountain Dew all the way to my lips and take a long swallow of the thing we shared, this private reminder of all we were to each other, and tell myself it’s just wishful thinking.

There are always millions of tons of dust in the air, just as there are millions of cubes of air in the earth and more living flesh in the soil (worms, beetles, underground creatures) than there is grazing and existing on it. Herodotus records the death of various armies engulfed in the simoom who were never seen again. One nation was 'so enraged by this evil wind that they declared war on it and marched out in full battle array, only to be rapidly and completely interred.”

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After arriving in New Zealand, Kit begins her journey with the memories of the past: of days spent on the beach with Josie. Of a lost teenage boy who’d become part of their family. And of a trauma that has haunted Kit and Josie their entire lives. When we are young, we believe in the impossible. It is built into us. And as we grow older, the childhood glasses come off and we are faced with harsh realities and painful truths. When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal tells us of two sisters torn apart by years of tragedy and loss – shifting viewpoint from one girl to the other throughout the novel – coming together as a truly beautiful story. Certain parts are very difficult to get through (a young girl is sexually assaulted on more than one occasion) but this is one that is definitely worth reading. Boomer Lit, boomer novels, short stories, memoirs and more are here: a new genre. Let's talk about it! The attempt to shoehorn a side plot investigation about the movie stars death could have made an excellent addition and breathed some much-needed life into Mari’s dull as hell story, but it was completely forgotten! I thought that with the mention of the computer and the journals we would get a tasty little puzzle to solve but no. It’s literally not mentioned again, other than as a very brief after thought at the end. What was even the point in including it?? Mari Edwards is living a wonderful life with her husband and children in New Zealand. But she has a dark past that has now shown up on her doorstep, and she is willing to do anything not to lose everything she has – even though eventually she will need to face her demons.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love." The tone was so confused. O'Neal should have made up her mind – was she depicting a romantic vision of two sisters torn apart by time and reconnecting in a peaceful re-imagination of their childhood home by the sea? Or was she writing a tragic and gritty story of two traumatised adults looking for closure? Because she failed at both.

The Significance of the Title

Stopping by my tiny Santa Cruz house, 1,350 square feet on the edge of an almost-not-great neighborhood, I scramble into my wet suit, feed the worst cat in the world his half can of wet food, and make sure to move my fingers around in his kibble. He purrs his thanks, and I pull his tail gently. “Try not to pee on anything too important, huh?” The chapters alternate viewpoints between Kit and Mari, with each chapter revealing more of the past while also grounding us in each sister's current life. Kit's search for her sister (and her budding romance with Javier) seem to take longer than the few days that the author claims it does.

So much wasted potential. Fair warning, I did not enjoy this book. (I don't think there's spoilers but proceed at risk) I see myself too, an urchin of seven with too much hair, whirling on the beach, the sky overhead blurring blue and white.What was not so good? The story idea starts off with a bang. Once Kit gets to New Zealand, rather than marching forward to find her sister, she gets caught in a love affair with Javier, a rather cardboard character who says little but touches Kit in variously well-described ways. The relationship seems a sideshow (one of those curves on Lombard Street) to the overall novel and gets in the way in the first third of the book. Maybe it’s someone for Kit to interact with during the scenes where she would have been alone. Javier is a singer/guitarist star of some sort who only seems to have to perform if he wants to and is hanging around New Zealand for no apparent purpose other than to show up in scenes in this book.