The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn

What would you do if your husband left you with a toddler and an infant?

Jenny, Betty and baby Rose are left to fend for themselves when husband/father Henry just doesn’t come home from work one night. Nor the next, or the next or the next…. And when he does return, he asks “where’s the dog??? “

When Henry doesn’t come home from work, Jenny worries slightly, then decides to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.  She has a life-changing experience that somehow involves a mermaid and before you know it, three months later, her husband comes home.   

Jenny transitions to a more independent person after she spends time with the mermaid who coaxes her into situations that Jenny would never do on her own.  The mermaid helps her search her soul and realize that she has something within herself that is important.  

I enjoyed reading this book especially because it’s about my birth place Brooklyn. The setting is Park Slope, Brooklyn and the neighbors are preppy types, some slightly upper crusty where the moms stay at home and meet at the park with their children and they all know each other and gossip about each other.