Drowning practice : a novel /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Profoundly moving, filled with tenderness, and brought to life by a curious, sprawling imagination, Drowning Practice is the story of a mother and daughter trying to save each other's lives at what could be the end of the world

One night, everyone on Earth has the same dream--a dream of being guided to a watery death by a loved one on November 1. When they wake up, most people agree: after Halloween, the world will end.

In the wake of this haunting dream and saddled with its uncertainty, Lyd and her daughter, Mott, navigate a changed world, wrestling with how to make choices when you really don't know what comes next. Embarking on a quixotic road trip filled with a collection of unexpected and memorable characters, Lyd and Mott are determined to live out what could be their final months as fully as possible. But how can Lyd protect Mott and help her achieve her ambitions in a world where inhibitions, desires, and motivations have become unpredictable, and where Mott's dangerous and conniving father has his own ideas about how his estranged family should spend their last days?

Formally inventive and hauntingly strange, Drowning Practice signals the arrival of a singular new voice in Mike Meginnis, who writes with generosity and precision, humor and sorrowfulness. Stirring and surprising at every turn, Drowning Practice is literary speculative fiction at its best and with a pulsing heart: a mother and daughter trying to decide how they should live out what might be the final months of their--or anyone's--life on Earth.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Meginnis has a wild if intimately involving imagination--his debut, Fat Man and Little Boy, offered a surreal slant on the terrible atomic bombing of Japan at the end of World War II by reconceiving the bombs as human and in fact brothers--and he's at it again. His second novel posits that one night everyone on Earth has the same dream of being escorted to death by a loved one on November 1, spurring the conviction that the world will end after Halloween. Lyd and her daughter, Mott, join a troupe of travelers aiming to live fully until the end, regardless of the uncertainty, though Mott's estranged father has a different idea of what they should be doing. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Publishers Weekly Review

Meginiss (Fat Man and Little Boy) sets a mother and daughter's escape from an abusive ex-husband against a pre-apocalyptic backdrop in his layered sophomore effort. It begins with an arresting premise: everyone on Earth just had the same dream that they will all die in seven months, on the day after Halloween. Some take their own lives or ask others to kill them, while others burn down buildings, drink excessively, or attempt to continue life as normal. Lyd, a successful novelist and mother to 13-year-old Mott, attempts to hide from her abusive ex-husband, David, who claims to be a spy but won't say for which agency. Lyd and Mott's travels through a dystopian landscape has echoes of The Road, up until they arrive at the University of Houston and move into a dorm, where they find a new, semi-civilized normal, and Mott attends a writing workshop and forms a friendship with an awkward woman who works the front desk. Inevitably, David shows up. There's a lot going on, and it's a little baggy, but Meginnis writes well about the dread Lyd endured when living with David, and an ambiguous ending leaves many open questions to keep the reader pondering. Many writers continue to imagine the end of things, but Meginnis has found a new way to make it disturbing. (Mar.)

Kirkus Book Review

A 13-year-old girl and her mother confront the end of the world on a road trip in this dark, engaging novel. In January, everyone across the globe has the same dream of a man--described as a father in the logic of the dream--telling them that the world will end in November but that it isn't their fault. The revelation that the same dream has appeared to every person on Earth, with only mild variation, plunges the U.S. into a state of hollowed-out normality. Many people continue working because "it was what others expected of them and...no one seemed to have a better idea," but a generalized depressive apathy has rendered everything a husk of its former self; people sleep everywhere, shelves are largely barren, teachers show up but don't teach, and the threat of violence lurks everywhere as people struggle to find reasons to survive until the world ends. For Mott, a 13-year-old girl, trying to continue her own middle school education and care for her reclusive mother, Lyd, fill her time. But when Lyd receives a call from her abusive ex-husband, David, who works for the CIA and spies on her constantly, to tell her he'll be arriving soon to bring her and Mott to live with him, she decides to take her daughter on the run to show her what she can of the world before it all ends--or David catches them. The world Meginnis crafts for what could be the last nine months of life on Earth is haunting and haunted, a reality in which people who are too afraid of death to either take their own lives or wait until the end of the world beg strangers to kill them. But against this grim backdrop, Meginnis engagingly finds ways to bring Mott and Lyd real happiness while avoiding clichés or tired, easy answers. Twisty and moving, this is an apocalypse novel that will keep readers guessing till the last page. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.