The Mermaid Chronicles: A midlife mer-moir
by Megan Dunn
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The true tale of how one woman's lifelong obsession became a midlife mermaid odyssey, from the irrepressibly witty author of Tinderbox and Things I Learned at Art School.
Forty, freckled and facing infertility, Megan Dunn hears the siren call that reawakens her lifelong obsession, and sets off in pursuit of mermaids. Real mermaids.
From Coney Island and Copenhagen to Courtenay Place, Wellington, New Zealand, from the semiotics of 1984 romantic comedy Splash to meet-ups with top professional mermaids, her odyssey takes her fathoms
deep, past the wreck and the boardwalk, as she asks the question that has plagued humans for millennia- What is it about mermaids?
Diving into the caverns of her own life, Megan loses the plot but finds her voice and hears the mermaids singing.
Shimmeringly intellectual and devastatingly deadpan, tragicomic and true, this is an off-the-hook tale about sex and death, mothers and daughters, women's work and marriage, the stories we tell ourselves and the myths that define us all.
'Her voice is so strong. It's wonderful.' - Lorde
'A treasure of a memoir . . . funny, frank and moving.' - Kim Hill
'Observes the importance of fantasy with keen wit and an open heart'. - Pip Adam, author of The New Animals
'A fabulously witty adventure, written in deeply moving prose.' - Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan or, The Whale
Author: Megan Dunn
ISBN: 9781776950867
Publisher: Penguin Group (NZ)
Published: 13/08/2024
Format: Paperback / softback
About the Author
Megan Dunn is the author of two irreverent works of non-fiction Tinderbox (Galley Beggar Press, 2017) and her memoir in essays Things I Learned at Art School (Penguin Random House New Zealand, 2021.)
Megan is as an art critic and essayist in New Zealand. She has published columns, reviews, personal essays and features for a wide range of media including the Guardian Australia, The New Zealand Listener, Metro, Newsroom and Art News New Zealand. She was once the visual arts correspondent on Radio New Zealand's Saturday morning show, with broadcaster Kim Hill. So there.
Megan graduated with a master's in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. In 2006, she won an Escalator award from the New Writing Partnership (now the National Centre for Writing.) In 2022 she was the annual Writer in Residence at the International Institute of Modern Letters, based at Victoria University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka. During this residency she worked on the first draft of her mer-moir and also curated an art exhibition The Mermaid Chronicles, based on her journeys to meet the world's leading professional mermaids. You can watch a short clip of Megan speaking about mermaids on TVNZ.
Megan has chaired literary events with national and international authors including Rachel Kushner, Olivia Laing and Noelle McCarthy. Megan lives and works in Wellington. She is also interested in crocodiles.