Somehow a curse is passed on to Evangeline and her heirs. Peabody’s troupe of travelling entertainers. But we are also, alternatingly, provided with the origin story as we see the emergence of the wild boy, Amos, and his love for Evangeline in the menagerie that is Hermilius H. Enola is coming home after years away and July 24th is looming.Unravelling the mystery of Simon and Enola’s cursed family sets up a wild race of investigation and insight in the present. The arrival of an ancient tome that appears to be a circus master’s ledger may hold the clue. So why have all their female forebears, including their mother, died by drowning? And why always on July 24th? It’s a puzzle that has always haunted Simon, a reference librarian in the small town of Napawset on the coast of Long Island Sound. Like their mother before them and, we eventually learn, all their female forebears, they are able to hold their breath under water for extraordinary lengths of time. Simon Watson and his sister, Enola, are swimmers. The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler's gorgeous and moving debut, a wondrous novel about the power of books and family and magic. Why does his grandmother's name, Verona Bonn, appear in this book? Why do so many women in his family drown on July 24? Is there a curse on his family - and could Enola, who has suddenly turned up at home for the first time in six years, risk the same fate in just a few weeks? In order to save her - and perhaps himself - Simon must try urgently to decode his family history while moving on from the past.
His best friend and fellow librarian, Alice, looks on in increasing alarm. The paper crackles with age as Simon turns the yellowed pages filled with notes, sketches, and whimsical flourishes. The book tells the story of Amos and Evangeline, doomed lovers who worked in a traveling circus more than 200 years ago.
In late June Simon receives a mysterious package from an antiquarian bookseller. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards and seldom calls.
His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home - a house, perched on the edge of a bluff, that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. The damage renders it useless to me, but a name inside it - Verona Bonn - led me to believe it might be of interest to you or your family." Watson, I came across this book at auction as part of a larger lot I purchased on speculation.
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