The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Jackie is a social worker and therapist, dealing mostly with troubled children, helping them to process traumas and build family and social relationships.  She’s good at it; she’s not so good at repairing breaks with her own family, especially not with her sister, Lexie.  Lexie was always the golden child, the one for whom things came easily.  She was also very good at pushing people’s buttons, especially Jackie’s.

But Lexie has struggled with her mental heath the past few years, and Jackie has tried to distance herself—both literally and figuratively.  She’s moved across the country and limited her contact with her erratic sister, ignoring phone calls and never visiting. After one particularly manic episode, Jackie steels herself and returns Lexie’s call but Lexie doesn’t answer.

Lexie has drowned in the family pool at their grandmother’s house.

Jackie—or Jax, as Lexie dubbed her, calling them the X girls—goes to clear out Lexie’s things and finds that Lexie had become obsessed with researching the history of their family and their property, especially the spring that feeds the pool.  There are a lot of stories about that spring: it’s rumored to have healing properties. It’s also rumored to grant wishes.

One should always be careful what one wishes for.

I am not a horror reader as a rule.  I don’t care for gore and guts or slime.  This time of year, though, I do start looking for books that are a bit creepy, maybe with ghosts, and with lots of atmosphere.  Jennifer McMahon has a number of books out that fit that description so I decided to give The Drowning Kind a try.  It met my expectations wonderfully. I like character-driven books, which this is.  The story is told from Jackie’s point of view, but also from the perspective of Ethel, a young wife in the late 1920s who goes with her husband to a hotel rumored to have the most amazing healing spring. It’s very well-written, with beautifully descriptive passages.  Even though I had a pretty good idea where the plot was going, I was anxious to see what would happen next.  I found myself caught up in both worlds, and hated to have to close the book. The Drowning Kind was a memorable novel for me and I expect I will be reading other titles by Jennifer McMahon in the future.