Waterbaby

August 27, 2007
Titled after the Charles Kingsley fairy tale, this dizzying novel opens on epileptic, prematurely retired Tam Marr-Burgess, who is “pushing 46,” and whose attempt to collude with her landlady in a minor fraud goes very bad. The result is an immediate, spectacular eviction. As Tam lights out from the Chicago suburbs, Mazza (How to Leave a Country
) sets up several parallel narratives, each of which has echoes of the other: Tam is headed for the family enclave in Maine, where she had her first seizure when swimming at school, was either saved (the official story) or sabotaged (Tam's version) by her elder brother, Gary, and never swam again. On arriving, she rescues an infant from a Laundromat toilet, and then hides the baby and its petulant teen mother at the family lighthouse. She also joins her amateur genealogist sister, Martha, in digging up information on three mysterious figures: a baby saved from the waves by Tam's lighthouse-keeper ancestors, a relative named Mary Catherine, and a local ghost—all of whom may have things to tell them about their own lives. As multiple pasts spin out, Gary comes unglued and tries to make his problems Tam's, much as he did during her eventful college years. There are wry pleasures to be had in Tam's life and adventures, but Mazza puts too many oars in the surf and never gets them all in synch.

December 15, 2007
When she was 12 and swimming in a race she was about to win, Tam Marr-Burgess had her first epileptic seizure. The consequences of this life-changing event were many: she quit a promising swimming career and refused to return to the water; she distanced herself from her family, particularly her outgoing brother, Gary, whom she blamed for bringing about her seizure; and she lived a life of extreme control and isolation. Now, at 46, retired and financially stable, Tam returns to her roots on a trip to the Maine coast to conduct family research on behalf of her genealogically inclined sister, Martha. In researching the history of her ancestors, 19th-century lighthouse keepers, Tam discovers a shipwrecked baby, a forlorn ghost, family hardship, and lost love. More important, she rediscovers herself, the self she had nearly lost to fear and resentment. In setting the bulk of the story by the misty, tumultuous sea, award-winning author Mazza ("Many Ways To Get It, Many Ways To Say It") perfectly illustrates the underlying tension in Tam's efforts to live her life on calm waters. Recommended.Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Law Lib., Malibu, CA

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