Susanna Daniel (Stiltsville) explores marriage and motherhood in all their complications in her second novel, Sea Creatures. Georgia and her husband, Graham, leave the Midwest for her hometown of Miami when his sleep disorder costs him his job at Northwestern and her own college counseling business tanks. Her father and stepmother welcome the couple and their three-year-old son, Frankie, letting them use a slip on the canal to moor their houseboat.
Graham finds a research job and Georgia goes about being the quintessential helicopter mother, devoted to Frankie--who hasn't spoken a word in 18 months. It was Georgia's idea to have a child, and Graham has not adjusted well--furthermore, he doesn't like Miami. Georgia takes a job as an errand girl for Charlie, a reclusive artist. Frankie goes with her, which opens new avenues of communication for all three of them.
Daniel has orchestrated everything to work against the success of this move: Graham's sleep issues, Frankie's mutism, Georgia's terror that she isn't a good mother. (The origins of Frankie's silence are murky, but Daniel hints that Graham's disorder is somehow involved.) When Hurricane Andrew blows through southern Florida, Daniel has the necessary deus ex machina to rearrange everything--in startling ways. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.