That is the fate that she ultimately meets, but Ann Claycomb wasn’t satisfied with the ending to this story.
“I love some of [Anderson’s] stories. They’re so crazy and they’re really weird and dark,” Claycomb, a life-long reader of fairy tales, said. “…I definitely felt like the ending [of “The Little Mermaid] was wrong. I wanted to fix the ending.”
The book follows Kathleen, a 25-year-old dramatic opera singer who suffers from stabbing pain in her feet. On her 16th birthday, she woke screaming from the sensation that her tongue had been cut out. No doctor can find a medical explanation for her pain, and only the touch of seawater can temporarily ease her pain.
Kathleen's mother and grandmother both committed suicide as young women, and her girlfriend Harry worries they suffered from the same symptoms. The women follow Kathleen’s ancestry back to Ireland, where they uncover the mystery of her phantom pains and her tragic fate.
Underlying themes in Claycomb’s debut novel include an LGBTQ+ love story, family bonds and a homecoming, but her primary theme is the power of art.
“Art is a kind of magic, and I don’t mean that lightly,” Claycomb said. “In this world, there’s real magic. There are curses, witches and people who used to be mermaids…We can’t access that magic, but we have this other kind of magic.”
Claycomb said she’s interested in artists and the power that they hold as creators. Characters in “Mermaid’s Daughter” sing verses from original songs.
Claycomb is working on retelling another fairy tale for her next novel.
“The Mermaid’s Daughter” was published by William Morrow Paperbacks.
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