59. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

read first 2/3 on Kindle while laid up with broken elbow at Laura's, finished last 1/3 on audio/Chirp

narrated by Ari Fliakos

Unabridged audio (11:42)
2015
339 pgs.
Adult Magical Realism told in two time periods
Finished 6/2/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.60 - 32,808 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Contemporary Long Island Sound, New York and "OTR" in the northeast a couple hundred years before

First line/s: "Perched on the bluff's edge, the house in in danger."

My comments: 2/3 read on Kindle 1/3 listened on Chirp.  Narrated really well.  Magical realism?  Historical fiction.  Two time periods - 1790 & present time.  Simon, the contemporary protagonist, is a librarian, brother, and swimmer who can hold his breath for 10 minutes.  The setting, a house on the edge of Long Island Sound, is slipping into the water more and more as the weeks progress until it finally totally disintegrates and slides down the bank into the sea.  There's lots and lots of water in this book.  Mermaids swimming in see-through tanks. Floods.  Downpours so bad that water seeps into houses, ruins books, pages ... lives.  Families that combine and twist and become confusingly and elaborately pulled together - to the very end.  My favorite character was the tentacle-tattooed young man who is full of electricity, lighting lightbulbs with his fingers in the traveling circus sideshow.  I particularly enjoyed listening to the narration, it has enhanced the writing for me.  At the end of the audio is a short interview with the author that is quite interesting.  Very difficult for me to rate, But I definitely liked most of it.

Goodreads synopsis:  A sweeping and captivating debut novel about a young librarian who is sent a mysterious old book, inscribed with his grandmother's name. What is the book's connection to his family?

          Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home, a house perched on the edge of a cliff that is slowly crumbling into the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks.
          One day, Simon receives a mysterious book from an antiquarian bookseller; it has been sent to him because it is inscribed with the name Verona Bonn, Simon's grandmother. Simon must unlock the mysteries of the book, and decode his family history, before fate deals its next deadly hand.
          The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler's gorgeous and moving debut, a wondrous novel about the power of books, family, and magic.