The Drowning Girl -- Caitlin R. Kiernan, Paperback

A complex, haunting novel that explores a schizophrenic young artist's struggles with her perception of reality... including an intriguing ghostly woman who appears to her in the most mysterious ways.

India Morgan Phelps--Imp to her friends--is trying to write her memoir, but she struggles with the unreliability of her own mind. Suffering from schizophrenia, as well as comorbid anxiety and OCD, Imp has a difficult time separating fantasy from reality. But for her, it's most important to tell her "truth."

And for Imp, that truth comes through a stream-of-consciousness tale of her love story with her transgender girlfriend, as well as Imp's obsession with a mysterious woman whom she finds naked and mute at the side of the road. Imp must push past her mental illness--or work with it--to piece together her memories and tell her story.

A rich exploration of mental illness, gender identity, and creative process, The Drowning Girl delivers an eerie and powerful story of a woman's efforts to discover the truth that's locked away in her own head.

"Caitlín R. Kiernan moves firmly into the new vanguard [...] of our best and most artful authors of the gothic and fantastic--those capable of writing fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness."--Peter Straub

Author: Caitlin R. Kiernan
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 03/06/2012
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.30w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780451464163
Age Range: 18-UP
Award: Bram Stoker Awards - Winner
Award: Nebula Awards - Nominee
Award: Locus Awards - Nominee

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/16/2012 pg. 42
Booklist 03/01/2012 pg. 53
Library Journal 03/15/2012 pg. 95
Shelf Awareness 03/13/2012

About the Author
Caitlin R. Kiernan is the author of nine novels, including Silk, Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, Daughter of Hounds, and The Red Tree. Their award-winning short fiction has been collected in six volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; and, most recently, A is for Alien. They have also published two volumes of erotica, Frog Toes and Tentacles and Tales from the Woeful Platypus. Trained as a vertebrate paleontologist, they currently live in Providence, Rhode Island.