- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; New edition edition (7 April 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 184195599X
- ISBN-13: 978-1841955995
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 12.7 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 34,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Benny Poteat is the only witness to a young woman's suicide. After setting up a video camera on the bank of a river, she undresses, walks into the water and disappears. Should Benny go to the police? Or keep this terrible information to himself? When Benny decides to find out who the woman was, what began as a blackly humorous tale peopled by misfits and loners, gradually descends into darkness and obsession. With heart-breaking honesty and touches of surrealism, Visits From the Drowned Girl uncovers the secret longings that dwell beneath the surface of everyday lives.
About the Author
Steven Sherrill is a poet and short-story writer as well as the author of The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break (Canongate, 2003). He lives in Illinois.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a fantastic book about the effects of secrets on a persons life. When Benny Poteat witnesses a girl drown herself, he finds the video tapes and camera that she left behind. After an embarassing incident involving a stubbed toe and a chocolate penis he can't bring himself to report the death.
To find out more about the girl who died he starts watching the tapes. He also meets and starts dating her midget sister. the book shifts effortlessly from moments of extreme darkness to great comedy (I laughed out loud when the dog chose the wrong moment to vomit up Becky's knickers).
Benny is a strangely sympathetic central character despite his increasingly unforgivable behaviour. He certainly isn't likable but even his most unlikely actions seem reasonable when we look through his eyes. His voyeurism turns to outright cruelty by the end of the book as a side-effect of keeping the secret for so long.
I cannot recommend this book enough. The prose style is hypnotic, the characters well drawn, sympathetic and believable, the dialogue crisp and frequently very funny, and the story flows with the force of the river the girl drowns herself in in chapter one.
There is some detail which isn't for the squeamish but I ain't squeamish.
An easy 5 stars
To find out more about the girl who died he starts watching the tapes. He also meets and starts dating her midget sister. the book shifts effortlessly from moments of extreme darkness to great comedy (I laughed out loud when the dog chose the wrong moment to vomit up Becky's knickers).
Benny is a strangely sympathetic central character despite his increasingly unforgivable behaviour. He certainly isn't likable but even his most unlikely actions seem reasonable when we look through his eyes. His voyeurism turns to outright cruelty by the end of the book as a side-effect of keeping the secret for so long.
I cannot recommend this book enough. The prose style is hypnotic, the characters well drawn, sympathetic and believable, the dialogue crisp and frequently very funny, and the story flows with the force of the river the girl drowns herself in in chapter one.
There is some detail which isn't for the squeamish but I ain't squeamish.
An easy 5 stars
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