Why am I passionate about this?
As a child, I listened to scary Korean folklore and then devoured all of Grimm’s fairy tales with their themes of good versus evil, disguise and betrayal, sacrifice, and magic. It’s not surprising that as I grew older, my reading tastes skewed toward darkness, mystery, madness, and the uncanny. There’s a penitential aspect to gothic stories, with their superstitious moralism, often with elements of the supernatural manifesting not as monsters but restless spirits—the repressed ghosts of a location’s history. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of a place absorbing and regurgitating the histories and sins of its occupants, whether it be a town, a house, or both.
Chin-Sun's book list on distressed women
Why did Chin-Sun love this book?
I rarely encounter writing that deals so unflinchingly with the darkest aspects of human nature in such a beautifully nuanced way. This book does not shy away from heavy, even transgressive themes, including mental illness, parental negligence, sexual predation, and grooming.
It centers around teenage sisters Edie and Mae, who are sent to stay with their estranged father after their mother’s failed suicide attempt—but their close alliance fractures due to their separate fixations on each parent. Told from multiple POVs, I found the novel’s structure as intricately woven as a spider’s web. The final act, which leaps ahead fifteen years, is an absolute stunner.
1 author picked The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
*2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
*Longlisted for The Crook’s Corner Book Prize
*Longlisted for the 2019 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award
*Shortlisted for the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for Fiction
*A Best Book of 2018 —Kirkus Reviews, BuzzFeed News, Entropy, LitReactor, LitHub
*35 Over 35 Award 2018
*One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall —Vulture, Harper's BAZAAR, BuzzFeed News, Publishers Weekly, The Millions, Bustle, Fast Company
It’s 16-year-old Edie who finds their mother Marianne dangling in the living room from an old jump rope, puddle of urine on the floor, barely alive. Upstairs,…