10/11/2021
Meginiss (Fat Man and Little Boy) sets a mother and daughter’s escape from an abusive ex-husband against a pre-apocalyptic backdrop in his layered sophomore effort. It begins with an arresting premise: everyone on Earth just had the same dream that they will all die in seven months, on the day after Halloween. Some take their own lives or ask others to kill them, while others burn down buildings, drink excessively, or attempt to continue life as normal. Lyd, a successful novelist and mother to 13-year-old Mott, attempts to hide from her abusive ex-husband, David, who claims to be a spy but won’t say for which agency. Lyd and Mott’s travels through a dystopian landscape has echoes of The Road, up until they arrive at the University of Houston and move into a dorm, where they find a new, semi-civilized normal, and Mott attends a writing workshop and forms a friendship with an awkward woman who works the front desk. Inevitably, David shows up. There’s a lot going on, and it’s a little baggy, but Meginnis writes well about the dread Lyd endured when living with David, and an ambiguous ending leaves many open questions to keep the reader pondering. Many writers continue to imagine the end of things, but Meginnis has found a new way to make it disturbing. (Mar.)
In a literary landscape littered with post-apocalyptic novels, Meginnis has created something distinctive.” — Washington Post
"Meginnis engagingly finds ways to bring Mott and Lyd real happiness while avoiding clichés or tired, easy answers...Twisty and moving, this is an apocalypse novel that will keep readers guessing till the last page." — Kirkus Reviews
“Drowning Practice is the best new novel I’ve read in ages. Its heroines Mott and Lyd are surprising and compelling, a daughter and mother not merely surviving the end of their world but determined to make something new before it comes. So many apocalypses diminish the world, robbing it of its glories: here Mike Meginnis sets out to restore its wonder. In doing so, he’s gifted us a novel of haunting grace and deep, difficult love, a story I don’t believe I’ll ever forget.” — Matt Bell, author of Appleseed
“This dreamlike novel reinvents the apocalypse to explore the moral ambiguities of family love, social convention, and the creative imagination. It’s scary and funny and completely surprising. With Drowning Practice, Mike Meginnis has given us a startling and moving meditation on a world forever roiled by and in recovery from catastrophe—that is to say, a world much like ours.” — J. Robert Lennon, author of Subdivision
“Drowning Practice is a book about a dream, and it reads like a dream too: melancholy and luminous, looping and discursive, resistant to easy interpretation…mesmerizing…like a dream, it follows its own logic, and like many dreams, it has stayed with me in the waking hours since I emerged.” — New York Times
Drowning Practice is the best new novel I’ve read in ages. Its heroines Mott and Lyd are surprising and compelling, a daughter and mother not merely surviving the end of their world but determined to make something new before it comes. So many apocalypses diminish the world, robbing it of its glories: here Mike Meginnis sets out to restore its wonder. In doing so, he’s gifted us a novel of haunting grace and deep, difficult love, a story I don’t believe I’ll ever forget.”
This dreamlike novel reinvents the apocalypse to explore the moral ambiguities of family love, social convention, and the creative imagination. It’s scary and funny and completely surprising. With Drowning Practice, Mike Meginnis has given us a startling and moving meditation on a world forever roiled by and in recovery from catastrophe—that is to say, a world much like ours.”
Drowning Practice is a book about a dream, and it reads like a dream too: melancholy and luminous, looping and discursive, resistant to easy interpretation…mesmerizing…like a dream, it follows its own logic, and like many dreams, it has stayed with me in the waking hours since I emerged.
In a literary landscape littered with post-apocalyptic novels, Meginnis has created something distinctive.
In a literary landscape littered with post-apocalyptic novels, Meginnis has created something distinctive.
Drowning Practice is a magical, enigmatic novel about a society haunted by the foreknowledge of its imminent death. It's beautiful and often very funny but most of all profoundly compassionate, and also has one of the most insightful depictions I've ever seen of an abusive relationship. I loved it.”
06/01/2022
One night, the entire world has the same dream that they will drown on November 1. Everyone agrees, the world will end at that time. With this knowledge, Lyd and her young daughter, Mott, must come to terms with living in the end times and decide to embark on a road trip before the world ends. Along the way, they meet interesting characters, fulfill lifelong dreams, and work through difficult relationships. This heavily literary novel is uniquely written, as listeners are taken along on the road trip and find out information along with the characters. Narrator Stacey Glemboski brings to life a struggling mother, a confused daughter, and a motley crew of individuals courageously facing the most important event in human history. VERDICT Exploring the choices humans make in trying times and offering a more nuanced take on the apocalyptic novel, this mesmerizing listen brings life to the unique writing of Meginnis (Fat Man and Little Boy).—Elyssa Everling
10/01/2021
Meginnis has a wild if intimately involving imagination—his debut, Fat Man and Little Boy, offered a surreal slant on the terrible atomic bombing of Japan at the end of World War II by reconceiving the bombs as human and in fact brothers—and he's at it again. His second novel posits that one night everyone on Earth has the same dream of being escorted to death by a loved one on November 1, spurring the conviction that the world will end after Halloween. Lyd and her daughter, Mott, join a troupe of travelers aiming to live fully until the end, regardless of the uncertainty, though Mott's estranged father has a different idea of what they should be doing. With a 75,000-copy first printing.
2021-12-24
A 13-year-old girl and her mother confront the end of the world on a road trip in this dark, engaging novel.
In January, everyone across the globe has the same dream of a man—described as a father in the logic of the dream—telling them that the world will end in November but that it isn't their fault. The revelation that the same dream has appeared to every person on Earth, with only mild variation, plunges the U.S. into a state of hollowed-out normality. Many people continue working because "it was what others expected of them and...no one seemed to have a better idea," but a generalized depressive apathy has rendered everything a husk of its former self; people sleep everywhere, shelves are largely barren, teachers show up but don't teach, and the threat of violence lurks everywhere as people struggle to find reasons to survive until the world ends. For Mott, a 13-year-old girl, trying to continue her own middle school education and care for her reclusive mother, Lyd, fill her time. But when Lyd receives a call from her abusive ex-husband, David, who works for the CIA and spies on her constantly, to tell her he'll be arriving soon to bring her and Mott to live with him, she decides to take her daughter on the run to show her what she can of the world before it all ends—or David catches them. The world Meginnis crafts for what could be the last nine months of life on Earth is haunting and haunted, a reality in which people who are too afraid of death to either take their own lives or wait until the end of the world beg strangers to kill them. But against this grim backdrop, Meginnis engagingly finds ways to bring Mott and Lyd real happiness while avoiding clichés or tired, easy answers.
Twisty and moving, this is an apocalypse novel that will keep readers guessing till the last page.
