"A gripping tale of compulsion, obsession, and forgiveness, set so evocatively amidst the fogs and furies of the offseason Maine coast. It's also an intriguing exploration of the ways in which our ancestral pasts echo within our own psyches." --Lisa Alther, author of Kinflicks and Kinfolks As children, Tam and her older brother were swimming when she suffered her first epileptic seizure. He pulled her from the water and was crowned a hero. Tam was labeled “disabled” and never swam again. And so began 30 years of vigilance, never allowing her body to betray her, never allowing her brother or her family or anyone else to influence her path. Now, in middle age, a lifetime’s worth of control has taken its toll. Exhausted, she heads to Maine where, while working on a genealogy project, she falls under the spell of two dead women: an ancestor, Mary Catherine, who died at 33; the other, the town ghost. Through their cloistered, tragic lives Tam relives her own life over and over--until a distant cousin forces her to see herself in a new light. This novel of one woman's quest to transcend self-imposed limitations is superbly crafted and richly satisfying, and "shows us how, through resuscitating our pasts, and rescuing each other, we might just save ourselves" (Alex Shakar, author of Savage Girl).

As children, Tam and her older brother were training to be Olympic swimming champions. Pitted in a practice race against each other, Tam was out in front, proving that she had the superior skills, until she suddenly suffered her first epileptic seizure. Just as he passed her to win, Tam's brother pulled her from the water, saving her life. He was dubbed a hero and his adult life continued with heroic exploits in canine search-and-rescue at earthquakes and terrorist bombings, but Tam, who steadfastly refused to enter the water again, never forgave her brother for finishing the race, while she'd felt she had no choice but to wear the mantle of ''disabled.''Thus started 30 years of careful vigilance to never again allow her body to betray her, nor her brother to ever again exert influence on her path. But eventually Tam finds that her life of cautious control and the arm's length estrangement that she's mentally maintained with her family has taken its toll. She's retired early, feels useless and in limbo, and makes an abrupt decision to visit Maine and assist in her sister's genealogy research by exploring a legend that suggests an ancestor was the sole survivor of a shipwreck - a baby girl rescued by a lighthouse-keeping great great grandfather.In Maine, Tam meets a distantly removed cousin, Nat, who tells her of another local legend, an unidentified woman who is said to have returned to the lighthouse in the 1930's to drown herself, and whose ghost is sometimes seen at twilight walking the rocky shore.Together they fabricate a fantasy version of their ancestors' experience in the remote lighthouse, where it's possible a shipwrecked baby did wash to shore, and irrevocably changed generations of lives-a fantasy that also has a sexual component for the two of them. Still retaining an adolescent vision of herself as a partial invalid, Tam has had a habit of living and reliving the minor traumas of her past-but Nat gives her the chance to be someone different, yet still the same: Tam is, for all intents and purposes, a ghost, but Nat's version of her ghostliness ascribes to it the kind of heroic mystery and romance that Tam has always assumed her brother to have but which Nat now gives her for herself.Meanwhile, in the real world, to add to the drama, Tam has ''rescued'' a baby who has been taken from his teenage mother, by sneaking it out from the small seaside hospital, and hiding both mother and child with herself at the privately owned lighthouse where her ancestors once lived.Tam's romantic quest to experience her ancestors' tragedies and heartbreak takes the particular form of a fascination with Mary Catherine, an ancestor who died at the age of 33 and onto whom Tam projects all her own anxities but this alternate life is invaded by the reappearance of her brother. And Tam, in a commanding re-entry into the water, chooses to close the book on her life of self-imposed susceptibility.

Charles Kingsley’s classic, The Water Babies, was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades. It tells the story of a young chimney sweep, Tom, who drowns in a river and is turned into a ‘water-baby’. Tom then embarks on a series of adventures and lessons underwater, and meets characters such as the major spiritual leaders of the water world, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, and Mother Carey. This classic fairy tale, originally published in 1915, contains eight incredible colour illustrations and many beautiful and intricate black and white drawings by W. Heath Robinson. An English cartoonist and illustrator, best known for drawings of ridiculously complicated machines – for achieving deceptively simple objectives. Such was (and is) his fame, that the term ‘Heath Robinson’ entered the English language during the First World War, as a description of any unnecessarily complex and implausible contrivance. Pook Press publishes rare and vintage Golden Age illustrated books, in high-quality colour editions, so that the masterful artwork and story-telling can continue to delight both young and old.

Reproduction of the original.

The adventures of Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, who is stolen by fairies and turned into a water baby.

Based on extensive fieldwork that spanned more than 50 years, this comprehensive dictionary is a monumental achievement and will help to preserve this American Indian language that is nearing extinction.

Drowning was the best thing that ever happened to Tom. Before, he was just another poor orphan, employed by the evil chimney-sweep, Grimes, who beat and overworked him. But now, he has escaped that life and become a water baby. From the river to the ocean, "The Water Babies" follows Tom’s fun and moving adventures as he meets all sorts of unique, aquatic creatures. A wonder of Victorian fantasy, Charles Kingsley’s imaginative 1863 classic has been a mainstay of British children's literature for decades. A huge hit in its time, it lead to reforms that relieved the suffering of young chimney-sweeps like Tom. Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) was an English novelist, priest of the Church of England, historian, professor, and social reformer. His most famous work is the classic fantasy novel "The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby" (1863).