The Deep End of the Ocean
Announced on September 17, 1996
About the BookPhotographer Beth Cappadora is far from the ideal mother and wife. She is harried, impatient, disorganized and ambivalent about her husband and her kids — faults that come back to haunt her after her middle child disappears in a crowded hotel lobby.
The ensuing decade of unbelievable grief and pain, of Beth's attempt at recreating a life after her son disappears, is lovingly documented in this electrifying novel. Like photographs in a family album, scenes from Beth's life are offered in startling detail: the scoops of coffee she forces herself to measure out each day; snatches of conversation between a husband an wife doggedly trying to return to a normal life; the cynical observations of her oldest child as he struggles to be noticed and loved; the "purple elephants" that loom in every family's living room — unspoken pain so huge one can only step around it, for to acknowledge it is too terrifying a prospect.
And, like all good photographs, this one is not without many shades of gray. There are no easy heroes in this story, although heroism abounds. While the novel speeds along with the pace of a thriller, its drama reaches far beyond the story of Ben's disappearance. The mystery of what happened to Ben is only one of the mysteries that envelop this novel. In revealing what happens to the Cappadora family, Mitchard offers us no easy answers. Instead she raises difficult questions about the nature of grief and loss, about the value of families of all kinds, and about the gifts of love, redemption, and forgiveness.
It would be easy for a writer to grant a happy ending to the Cappadora family, who have been through so much and none of it their fault. And yet instead we are left with something much more real, the side of a tragedy you won't catch on the 6 o'clock news. The Deep End of the Ocean will make you catch your breath. It will make you thankful. It will make you think. It will make you feel.
About the Author
Jacquelyn Mitchard's venture into fiction with her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, marks the latest evolution in her diverse and distinguished career as a writer. A native of Chicago, Mitchard graduated from the University of Illinois and Rockford College and became a newspaper reporter. From 1984 to 1988 she was metro reporter for the Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel. Her weekly column, "The Rest of Us," has appeared in the Journal for over a decade and will be nationally syndicated starting in September 1996.
From 1989 to 1993, Mitchard was the speechwriter for now U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, while Shalala was Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin . Mitchard has also been a contributing editor for Parenting magazine since 1990; she is a regular columnist for TV Guide and has been a regular contributor to such national magazines as Self, Money, and Women's Day. The mother of five children, Mitchard lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she is at work on a second novel entitled, The Most Wanted.
Jacquelyn Mitchard's venture into fiction with her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, marks the latest evolution in her diverse and distinguished career as a writer. A native of Chicago, Mitchard graduated from the University of Illinois and Rockford College and became a newspaper reporter. From 1984 to 1988 she was metro reporter for the Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel. Her weekly column, "The Rest of Us," has appeared in the Journal for over a decade and will be nationally syndicated starting in September 1996.
From 1989 to 1993, Mitchard was the speechwriter for now U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, while Shalala was Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin . Mitchard has also been a contributing editor for Parenting magazine since 1990; she is a regular columnist for TV Guide and has been a regular contributor to such national magazines as Self, Money, and Women's Day. The mother of five children, Mitchard lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she is at work on a second novel entitled, The Most Wanted.
Book Reviews
"[A] wrenching first novel, flies in the face of everything movies and your better class of talk shows say about bad things that happen to good people … wonderfully written."
—Gail Collins, The New York Times Book Review
"A drama with the tension of a thriller that moves deeply into the emotional territory of family ties."
—People
"Riveting … twists that will spin you around."
—Newsweek
"Take a deep breath. … This riveting story won't let you come up for air."
—US magazine
"[A] wrenching first novel, flies in the face of everything movies and your better class of talk shows say about bad things that happen to good people … wonderfully written."
—Gail Collins, The New York Times Book Review
"A drama with the tension of a thriller that moves deeply into the emotional territory of family ties."
—People
"Riveting … twists that will spin you around."
—Newsweek
"Take a deep breath. … This riveting story won't let you come up for air."
—US magazine
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