The epigraph “…but life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack.” —-Anne Sexton

Before that she says, “that she tried to reach into her page and breathe it back”.

Why can’t one do that? Was Mae trying to accomplish that? Was she successful?

Why/how do you put a kitten in a sack in the first place?

Why doesn’t Dennis get to tell his story?

And are we dealing with reliable narrators.

You know some things happened a long time ago. It’s a bit like Barnes’ Sense of An Ending.

Is what we remember what really happened?

And with Mae is what she did to herself necessary, mandatory to release her from the bind (a true bind) that she finds herself in?

Are the sisters really that much different?

Is Dennis a bad man? Is Marianne a bad woman?

Tell us what your Grandmother said about the title and what your thoughts were. I mean it’s not a quote, it's something you came up with. So as these girls delve down deeper and deeper into what the relationships with father and mother have done to them, what is the water, what is the fish and why do they get uglier?

I asked why deep sea fish are ugly: The deep sea is cold and dark. The pressure is immense, and meals are hard to come by. (You have to adapt)


May as well talk about the cover. The Ladies Home Journal 1889.

Some reviews look at the book as a mix between fantasy and realism.

Like Truman Capote’s, Answered Prayers or Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

I mean through the side stories by friends it is clear that he massaged their life stories to make his books more interesting.

Marianne’s father’s letter to Dennis is the most telling document in the book in many ways.

And what was it that Dennis saw in Marianne as (barely a teenager) they began their correspondence and relationship.

Were they in love with one another?

Are you going to write a screenplay for the book because it seems very cinematic.

Who do you identify most closely with.

The two sisters seem to love one another and long for each other’s touch but they disappoint each other over and over.