Erika Swyler’s Mournful And Magical The Book of Speculation

Simon Watson has been struggling to hold it together for a while. Following his mother’s suicide and his father’s withdrawal into mourning, he was left to care for his young sister, Enola. When his father passes away and Enola leaves their small coastal town, Simon must maintain the pieces of his family’s once idyllic life. Shackled to a long-neglected house, he muddles through, working at the local library and questioning whether he can ever get out from under his sense of obligation to the home his family left behind.
When the arrival of a mysterious book coincides with a surprise visit from his volatile sister, Simon worries something sinister is on the horizon. His suspicions are confirmed as he and an elderly midwest bookseller dig up bits of information on the names and dates found in the book, which they discover is a record of a long-disbanded traveling circus. The history of Simon’s family is linked to this band of travelers through a long tradition of women who worked as mermaids and tarot readers, holding their breath for endless minutes and telling fortunes. But if holding their breath underwater is a skill that’s passed down from generation to generation, how is it possible every woman in his family has drowned on July 24?
Layers of magical imagery rest atop a central idea: objects can possess an energy that wraps us up in our own history. For Simon, the house he grew up in holds a toxic appeal. He wants to keep it intact for his mother, his adored neighbor, his sister, seeing the house as a manifestation of his obligation to love.
But when he learns a hard-to-swallow truth about the house and the connection between his family and the neighboring McAvoys, a family Simon often wished he was part of as his own disintegrated, the house becomes more dead weight than living memory. In one moment, the things we hold most dear can be reinvented, or dissolve into meaninglessness.
Chapters alternate between the past and present, bringing the two timelines closer and closer as Simon learns more about his family’s troubled history. The effect is puzzlelike, as the reader and Simon put names and significant details together to approach the truth. Enola’s character—her losses, the lure the road has on her, her perennial restlessness—slowly come into focus as Simon digs deeper into their shared history. He and his sister are inheritors of a legacy born of death and disaster, mired in a sadness so deep it’s taken generations and centuries to finally cast it aside.
For Simon, gaining knowledge is a way to start over. By delving into the past he, Enola, and Alice McAvoy—the neighbor’s daughter with whom he begins a conflicted romance—are able to scale barriers built on uncertainty and distance to start again. The exploration of dark corners just might promise rebirth, a freedom from the invisible weights that stunt Swyler’s characters.
The Book of Speculation is lyrical, mythic and epic in a focused sense, exploring the web of buried secrets surrounding one family and a highly insulated community of travelers. It offers a unique exploration of the power of the sea, the history that comes before us, and the ways in which we must come to terms with the past. It’s a thrilling and fascinating read, with enough unexpected turns to draw you in.