'The Deeper The Water The Uglier The Fish' Is A Darkly Beautiful Debut

Editor's note: This review includes a brief account of a character's suicide attempt. Katya Apekina's debut novel opens with two sisters at a dance recital in New York. They've been brought there by their father, a man they barely know, but with whom they now live. "Mom is in St. Vincent's, resting," the elder sister, Edie, explains. "She has recently done something very stupid and I'm the one who found her." St. Vincent's is a mental hospital, and when Edie found her mother, she was hanging from a rafter, close to death, her youngest daughter lying in a trance in her bedroom. It's a dark beginning to a novel that's both disturbing and beautiful. The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish is a shocking debut and an unforgettable look at the pain that results when the bonds between parents and children break under stress. Edie and her younger sister Mae grew up in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, raised by their mother, Marianne, a poet with a history of mental illness. Mae, 14, is