The Skating Pond

by Deborah Joy Corey

The skating pond of Deborah Joy Corey's long-awaited second novel is the site of a terrible accident that reveals the cracks in 14-year-old Elizabeth's troubled family life. The daughter of an aloof painter and a frustrated Canadian beauty with an untapped gift for figure skating, Elizabeth spends winter afternoons watching her mother practice spins near their home in an isolated New England fishing village. When a stray hockey puck hits her mother in the forehead, Elizabeth once again finds herself on the sidelines. This time, however, she becomes a silent witness to the inexorable process by which a disfiguring facial injury not only destroys her parents' marriage but also robs her mother of sanity and life itself.

From these bleak raw materials, the New Brunswick-born author of Losing Eddie (which a decade ago won the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award) shapes a lyrical novel of romance in which the skating pond becomes a metaphor for the secret frozen places of the human heart. Elizabeth survives the loss of her family only to enter a passionate and increasingly hostile relationship with an older man who is not unlike her self-absorbed artist father. Her inability to free herself from Frederick's icy grip forms the central drama of this Gothic tale and ultimately leads her to make error in judgment with reverberations almost as disastrous as the accident on the pond.

Elizabeth's moving account of her parents' break-up is reminiscent of Corey's first novel, in which a nameless nine-year-old records, with chilling dispassion, the collapse of her own family. In the latter half of The Skating Pond, however, Elizabeth's voice suffers from a surfeit of romanticizing imagery, obscuring her motivations and those of other characters in a haze of purple prose. Corey remains a dazzling stylist but this novel lacks the precision that made Losing Eddie such an emotional tour de force. --Lisa Alward

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 7, 2003

Reviews

[Mac Dubista Keso The Bibliobibuli v(=∩_∩=) · Rating 3 out of 5]

More to reading, less to reviews.

LOL!

:)

#Sorrynotsorry ^_^

[Kristine Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

INAPPROPRIATE for KIDS not old enough to think like an adult. Really. The first few pages were okay but it became gruesome when the child's mother had the accident. and then, when the family fell apart and the child is all alone..... a fifteen year-old posing nude to be painted bu a man 30 years OLDER than she is and then two days later they had ***?! that is so like unbelievable. she is a KID and then he's a grown MAN with a wife! and it all started when she was jogging on the sidewalk and became tired to come back home because she ran a very far distance so she hitchhiked.

At the end, the story is sad... or tragic? i don't know. i don't know if her husband--the one who accepted and truly loved her, not the man who painted her-- died or just ignore her. i have no idea. i've read the ending more than twice and i still can't decide which incident happened.

[Laura Bohnert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is extremely easy to fall into, marring the crude sexual content which seems to be a little extreme at times causing me to question the shelf upon which I found the book.... Other than that, it is a unique story that haunts you for a few days with the representation of spirit and, in the end, broken spirit and the fragility of a person/ persona. It compares impulse to choice and reflects despairing consequences.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weird , in a weirdly wonderful way ! While the book is not for everyone , I appreciated the story's ability to remind how unforeseen events can shape an entire life . Corey's almost poetic writing style added to the story as well ;-)

[Carol Johnson]

Beautifully written. I hope this author writes many more! A love story about addictive, devastating love and loyal, deep, nourishing love. Lots of different relationships....mother/child, husband/wife, daughter-in-law/mother-in-law.....sweet stories!

[Katherine Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written book.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hard time finishing it coz it's a sad story to the core.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel was not my usual cup of tea, but I really enjoyed it. Beautifully written.

[Angella Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, visually stunning in its imagery. This book’s strength lies with its ugly, honest and authentic take on healing. Tells an all too common story of a lonely young girl lured into a relationship with an older man, who establishes a definition of love for her in her young and vulnerable state. When he leaves, she is forced to jump into a relationship with someone who will support her and care for her. She is rocked with constant change is not given time to grieve, so she is riddled with ties to the past.

The absolute best part of this book was Bertie and her son Michael. It broke my heart that both Elizabeth and Michael never fully let each other in.

I wish our main character had more of a personality from the start. Throughout the whole story, things just seem to HAPPEN to her. Which might be the point. But I wish we had more of her own internal monologue. Even though it was in first person, there was a degree of distance between us and the narrator.
It had a ton of potential to say something really impactful about the long term effects of emotionally distant parents and grooming, but it fell a little flat. Her mother kinda fell into the background by halfway through and we almost forgot about her. There was a lack of closure and the ending felt a bit rushed.

Overall a really good read.

[Lori Bamber · Rating 4 out of 5]

So beautiful. At first, the writing felt self-indulgent to me ... too many flourishes. But when I realized that many paragraphs demanded to be read as poetry, I fell into it and stayed mesmerized until the end. Almost a fairytale of a novel ... gorgeous.

[Barbara Parrish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

[Kesong Hilaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

It went downhill.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

boring

[Carol Fillmore · Rating 1 out of 5]

This started okay but it progressively got weirder. To the point where I was wondering what is going on? Yes there are dysfunctional families where weird things happen on a regular basis but in this story, the author seems to have gone to the extreme. It's bizarre. It also does not seem plausible what went on and I ceased to care what happened to the sisters. Didn't feel anything for them or any of the other characters.
I did not finish this. It got too ridiculous. There are too many other good books out there to read.
Do not recommend this book at all.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say that I was hooked, the whole accident and the future wreck ahead was captivating, but not necessarily in a good way. By the time I got to the end I was sick of the protagonist's stupidity and naivete, it was forgivable when she was younger, but three children and a marriage later and she still hasn't learned anything???

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of child whose mother is a beautiful, frustrated figure skater and the father is a distant painter. Tragedy is all over in the book. The story finally boils down to who one family rises above tragedy and one family sinks beneath the weight. I can't say I would recommend this book because there are just too many downers.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting beginning about young girl whose mother is badly disfigured in a skating accident. As a teenager, the girl ends up in an abusive relationship with an older man, an artist who spends time in a isolated Maine studio.

[Merry · Rating 5 out of 5]

ME

[Jamie Ekens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Captivating book. But the ending is stupid. >.<

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished it, but I didn't really care for the story. I couldn't root for the heroine, and the ending was confusing.

[Tarah Demerchant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book to be very melancholy. From the beginning to the end it was focused on the negative attributes of her life. Overall gave it a 3/5 because of this depressing feeling