Product Description

A #1 New York Times bestseller, Mitchard's suspenseful and moving novel is now available in trade paperback

Few first novels receive the kind of attention and acclaim showered on this powerful story--a nationwide bestseller, a critical success, and the first title chosen for Oprah's Book Club. Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving, The Deep End of the Ocean imagines every mother's worst nightmare--the disappearance of a child--as it explores a family's struggle to endure, even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch readers' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one.

"Riveting . . . twists that will spin you around." --Newsweek

"A drama with the tension of a thriller that moves deeply into the emotional territory of family ties." --People

"Take a deep breath. . . . This riveting story won't let you come up for air." --US magazine

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38119 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1996: The horror of losing a child is somehow made worse when the case goes unsolved for nearly a decade, reports Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Jacquelyn Mitchard in this searing first novel. In it, 3-year-old Ben Cappadora is kidnapped from a hotel lobby where his mother is checking into her 15th high school reunion. His disappearance tears the family apart and invokes separate experiences of anguish, denial, and self-blame. Marital problems and delinquency in Ben's older brother (in charge of him the day of his kidnapping) ensue. Mitchard depicts the family's friction and torment--along with many gritty realities of family life--with the candor of a journalist and compassion of someone who has seemingly been there. International publishing and movie rights sold fast on this one: It's a blockbuster.

From Publishers Weekly
One of the most remarkable things about this rich, moving and altogether stunning first novel is Mitchard's assured command of narrative structure and stylistic resources. Her story about a child's kidnapping and its enduring effects upon his parents, siblings and extended family is a blockbuster read. When three-year-old Ben Cappadora is abducted from a crowded Chicago hotel lobby where his mother, Beth, has taken him and his two siblings for her 15th high-school reunion, Beth's slow-motion nightmare is just the beginning of nine years of anguish about his fate. Beth retreats into an emotionless, fugue-like state, in which she neglects her surviving two children-oldest child Vincent and a baby daughter, Kerry-and seals herself off from her husband, Pat, the manager of a family restaurant near their home in Madison, Wisc. Yet jolting surprises continue to rock the narrative, as clues to Ben's fate emerge and the tension in the Cappadoras' marriage accelerates. That tension is partly responsible for and partly reflects the now teenaged Vincent's increasingly aggressive behavior, his desperate effort to forget that he had been in charge of his younger brother when Ben disappeared. Meanwhile, the large, voluble Cappadora clan remains faithful to the hope of Ben's return, disapproving of Beth's cold, angry denial that she will ever see her boy again. When she does, after nine years have passed, a series of bitter ironies drives the family off balance once more. Mitchard imbues her suspenseful plot with disturbingly candid psychological truths about motherhood and family relationships. Displaying an infallible ear for family conversation and a keen eye for domestic detail, she writes dialogue that vibrates with natural and unforced humor and acerbic repartee. She charts the subtle and minute gradations of maternal love with candor and captures the essence of teenage experiences and lingo. The novel becomes a universal tale of traumatic loss and its effects on individuals and families, an astute inquiry into the wellsprings of identity and a parable of redemption through suffering and love. Readers who explore the uncharted reaches of "the deep end of the ocean" with the Cappadoras will find this compelling and heartbreaking story-sure to be compared to The Good Mother-impossible to put down. Mitchard, who previously wrote the nonfiction Mother Less Child, has a wise and compassionate heart and talent to spare. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; movie rights to Peter Guber's Mandalay Entertainment, in conjunction with Michelle Pfeiffer's production company; rights sold in England, Italy, France, Germany and Holland; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
By her own admission, Beth Cappadora is a rather haphazard mother and wife. Still, her family is reasonably happy and her career as a photographer relatively satisfying. In a few short minutes in a crowded hotel lobby, Beth's world changes forever. Her two-year-old son, Ben, left in the care of older brother Vincent, disappears. Despite the efforts of police and friends, the search for Ben fails, and Beth retreats into grief. Emotionally abandoning her other children and her husband, she spends the next nine years in self-absorbed brooding, unmoved by either the increasing delinquency of Vincent or her husband's demands for change. Ben's miraculous return results more in shock than joy and initially drives the family further apart. First novelist Mitchard unstintingly explores the minutiae of grief, creating realistic characters and no easy solutions. With film rights already sold and an extensive advertising budget, libraries can expect demand. For all popular collections.?Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., N.C.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Not a big fan
I read this book because Oprah recommended it and I have to say I was confused as to why she recommended it. It was painfully and unnecessarily long and should have been edited better. As a parent, yes I can sympathize, but that doesn't make me like this book.

Every mothers worst nightmare...
When three year old Ben is kidnapped from a crowded hotel lobby Beth Cappadora has a breakdown.

As you can imagine any mother in that situation would react similarly with feelings of detachment, grief, sleepless nights and endless days. However, for Beth Cappadora these feelings never seem to quite go away, and although over the 10 years between Ben's kidnapping and his return Beth has done a good job of showing the outside world that she has gone back to normal, her family and those closest to her know better.

Beth is just going through the motions, barely paying attention to her eldest son and youngest daughter and neglecting her doting husband. Beth is afraid that the slightest deterrent from the life she has created post Ben will send an avalanche crashing down around her that she will not be able to recover from.

Many reviewers said that the characters were unlikable, and this may be true, as it was hard for me to like Beth at times, however, in real life people have real emotions and react to situations in very real ways, ways that maybe we cannot judge until we've walked a mile in their shoes. The one character in the book that my heart did go out to was Beth's teenage son Vincent. He felt the brunt of his mothers disconnect and felt as though much of it was his fault since at the tender age of seven, he was the one asked to look after Ben that fateful day.

`THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN' was a very honest book that will leave any parent emotionally drained by the end.

It was both a great and not so great....
Depressing? Yes. Well written? Yes. This story truly is every mothers worst nightmare. But as a mother, I feel it worthy to know about the horrors of the world so I read and become more aware to the point of paranoid at times. Anyway, I don't hate Beth. The mistake she made could be anyone's. I don't think I could survive a child of mine being taken. I can't say I could be strong for my other children either so I can't judge her. I think I lost a little interest in the book after they found out what happened to Ben. It got a little boring to me. And Reese just pissed me off. You can't blame a child for these things but as he got older he should have tried to be more understanding of his parent's heartache. A good read and I don't regret it.