Drowning Practice

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Biggest draw are the characters. Lyd, Mott and David are realistic and recognizable, even though they have severe personal issues. Meginnis' main focus is on how certain people try to dominate others emotionally: both the mother and the father are quite cunning on that front. I'd go as far and say the book is connected to Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, in the sense that this book too is a thinly disguised story about mental problems, resulting in a similar eerie atmosphere. It didn't surprise me when I read in an interview that Meginnis has suffered from a deep depression -- like Jackson.

Meginnis makes this aspect of psychological horror something that is both timeless and very much about our time, like when he has a character parrot discourse about personal growth, exposing a culture high on its own catchphrases & meritocratic therapeutic delusions.

I also felt a connection to the work of visual artist Paul McCarthy, as Meginnis has his characters move inside a social landscape of decay, dysfunction and a certain form of timid excess. I use the adjective 'timid' here because Meginnis never outdoes it, striking a difficult balance between certain satirical elements and realism, and between genre stuff and originality. McCarthy's video work comes to mind because he also exposes -- admittedly much more explicitly -- dark undercurrents in American society.

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