Georgia Under Water

by Heather Sellers

Heather Seller's unpretentious, vernacular prose allows Georgia a persuasive mix of innocence and experience. These are miraculous stories of survival, perhaps even forgiveness. To some of us Georgia's life would be unthinkable. Sellers makes us believe it is well worth living.

"Heather Sellers writes delicious, dangerous prose. She starts you twenty-three floors up in condo squalor, nips across for dysfunction in Disney country, threatens incest in Hotlanta, and comes to grief on the Gulf. The dead-credible life of Georgia Jackson-ineffably sweet, thoroughly in love with her own luscious body, half in love with her lush of a father-skids at the edge of the surreal. Her story had me laughing through the lump in my throat. An original. A knockout debut."-Janet Burroway

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

236 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Heather Sellers has a PhD in English/Creative Writing from Florida State University. She’s a professor of English at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where she teaches poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing courses. She won an NEA grant for fiction and her first book of fiction, Georgia Under Water, was part of the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers program.

Reviews

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sellers makes you feel Florida like D'Ambrosio makes you feel the Northwest; you get hot and humid reading these stories. They're linked in a satisfying way, following the preteen, then teen, Georgia Jackson with one story thrown in from the alcoholic dad's perspective (right when you want it) and then one from the careful sad mother (also well placed in the book). There are glitches here and there, but in general it's a tight collection, and I learn a lot from Sellers:

1) I learn how economy earns her space to wander a little; you trust her compact sentences so well that you let her lead you into weird places; and the stories really work as stories.

2) And Georgia's *voice*!
"His breath was sour, but I let it itch away at my neck. He was my dad. I knew he was odd and fine, brilliant, crushed." 35
"Her mouth [Carol Dean Moldenhauer's mouth:] was a big rectangle--that's how she laughed, opening up and silently letting out something large and square from inside her." 76

3) I also learn from the way Sellers stays close to the outer story, the surface, but somehow imbues the prose with thoughtful emotion -- makes me think of an Oscar Wilde quote I found in a Sontag essay: “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

Here is a marvelous passage: "During lunch, the boys ate standing up, out in the parking lot. They smeared their pudding pops on the teachers' cars; they called each other pecker-puffer and peter-pumper pretty much the whole time. It was like overhearing wild birds, messing and calling, messing and calling. Repeating everything, like they were trying to figure out the secret of the universe by finding the right combination of words. Oscar never joined in; he played chess with a cool retarded kid named Rocko." 89

4) One last thing I learn (though there's more besides) is how wonderfully blended you can get in the close-third with a character; I'm most amazed how she achieves this with the sleazy dad, Buck. "The Gulf of Mexico" (his story) opens like this on 95:
"Buck Jackson had a thousand dollars in his wallet. In hundreds. Ten hundred dollars.
He had divested himself of change.
It was Saturday. Hotter than hell and humid as an armpit. Florida.
Dee-lish."

Then, still with Buck on 102:
"Oh, life is good, he said. Then Paul Harvey came on. Not this, he said aloud. I could do better than this. He found Kenny Rogers. Then he found a gospel station. Black gospel. The real thing. He sang along, his voice beautiful to himself, working his way into knowing the words as each one came over the radio scratch to him."

[Marnie Sandiego · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining, funny, disturbing and enthralling read that sucked me in pretty fast. Georgia gives a brutally honest look at her coming of age in an extremely tumultuous family, and her obsessions, observations and thoughts run the gamut from insightful, witty and relatable to shocking and tragic. Overall I loved this book and think that anyone who's ever felt like the "weird kid" can relate. The two chapters which switched narration to others' points of view threw me off and were not very effective in my opinion, but overall I really liked the book and was mesmerized by Georgia.

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes my mind incoherent.
I didn't like the story: chewing scabs, the feelings for hewr family and just the way she handles(hehe) herself disgusts me. It was a sickening book
Although I didn't like it, I could not put it down! I read through fast and couldn't look away from it. Very well written. (:])

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

great, creepy short stories all centered on "same" girl and "family", Georgia and her family. for some reason reminded me of tv shows in the 70's, like laugh-in maybe. raunchy, free, funny, but somehow i wasn't understanding all that was happening, that there was an ugly part to the "funny". has heather sellers written more?

[Caitelen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heather writes from a place that I only wish I could access. Reading "Georgia" is like taking a bite out of a fresh kumquat. Its leathery, bitter rind shocks the taste buds at first, but that quickly gives way to the sweet beneath.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another one for the "to re-read" pile. I'm not sure I fully grasped the true beauty of this novel when I read it as a teenager. Suffice it to say that this book is luscious, compelling, and just a little bit confusing. (Kind of like Georgia herself, come to think of it!)

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to read this book a little at a time--it made me so uncomfortable. In the best way possible, of course.

[Bonnie Skinner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something you think about forever after reading.

[Sarabande Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

2001 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award
2002 Paterson Fiction Prize Finalist

[Briana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ummm. Hm. Weird. Awkward. Uncomfortable. I get it but I don't get it. I didn't enjoy it at all. I read it fast just to get it over with.