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THE DROWNING TREE is a highly literate mystery with an appropriately collegiate setting: the historic and exclusive Penrose College, an institution in the Hudson River Valley, founded by Pre-Raphaelite artist, Augustus Penrose and his heiress wife, Eugenie. Juno McKay has mixed feelings about Penrose College. While her classmates were graduating, Juno dealt with an unplanned pregnancy, marriage, and eventually, her husband's nervous breakdown. Nevertheless, when her best friend, Christine, is invited to speak at a reunion, Juno feels impelled to attend. She wants to support her friend. And as a restorative artist, the topic-the history of a famous stained glass window she is scheduled to work on-is personally pertinent to Juno. Christine identifies the model as Eugenie's sister, Clare, a woman who was eventually institutionalized in the very same hospital as Juno's husband. It's a controversial revelation. A day after the lecture, Juno and her daughter find Christine's body floating in the river. Was Christine's death suicide, accident, or murder? Was there a connection between the lecture and her death? Juno's relationship with Christine and her work on the window force her to consider all of these questions. Goodman travels back and forth between the early 1900s, Juno's youth, and the present seamlessly. The real story behind the window and the relationship with Clare and Eugenie may be critical. Did the remaining Penrose heir have a problem with Christine's revelations? Juno's ex-husband had recently seen Christine. For the first time in 15 years, Juno is faced with the necessity of dealing with her ex-husband and their personal history. THE DROWNING TREE is Carol Goodman's third book and it left me curious to read the others. Her descriptions are haunting and the characters are believable. Mental illness can be a touchy subject, but Goodman handles it well. References to mythology in THE DROWNING TREE are ubiquitous, perhaps unduly so, but then this is a book with a setting that is heavily academic. Although the pace was slow in the beginning, after the first third of it, I was anxious to see how all of the various subplots would end. To my pleasant surprise, Goodman avoids the predictable solutions. It's a solid read.
Reviewed by Michelle L. Zafron, August 2004
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