The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson

Laurel Gray Hamilton’s life begins to unravel when the ghost of her daughter’s best friend visits her. Needing help, she turns to her tempestuous older sister, Thalia. The two are polar opposites as far as their lifestyles and temperaments and they clash head on. Laurel is a mild suburban wife with a rather distracted husband. They live in a community of manicured lawns and apparent perfection. Thalia and her gay husband run a small theater. Thalia despises her sister's life and Laurel does not understand Thalia's. Yet they share a love of Laurel's daughter, Shelby, and each in their way strives to protect her. Bet, Shelby's visiting pen pal from DeLop plays a pivotal role.

The author says the central theme of her book concerns poverty, but the poverty is not just literal, it is the poverty of relationships that are not honest, and the poverty of living a blinkered life. There are also many secrets being harbored, in the family, in the neighborhood, and what is on the surface is not always the same as what lies beneath. Location is also important. Victorianna, where Laurel lives is supposedly a middle class paradise, DeLop, a dirt poor collection of run down houses next to an abandoned mine, reflects literal poverty and is the place that Laurel & Thalia's mother escaped from when she married their father. Ghosts also play a role, Molly, the drowned girl, and Uncle Marty who was shot. Are the ghosts real or imagined? You decide.

The Abingdon Library book group read this novel for October. It prompted a lot of discussion. It was interesting and raised many issues. Secrets, ghosts, how we dispense charity, relationships, honesty, how we approach life.

For book groups and interested readers, there is a very good blog of discussion questions written by a teacher called Mary Zorro. See her blog at http://booksiread-zorro.blogspot.com/2008/06/girl-who-stopped-swimming.html

Jackson wrote a previous novel called Gods in Alabama and prior to that, Between, Georgia. Both books were No. 1 Booksense Picks and made her the first author to win this accolade with back to back titles. She currently lives with her family outside Atlanta. For more about the author and her books go to her website at http://joshilynjackson.com/bio.html.