Rules of the Lake: Stories

Before Mickey Mouse took up permanent residence in central Florida, it was the kind of place where a young girl might aspire to be Esther Williams. Such is the scenic backdrop for Ziegler's debut collection of 14 interconnected stories, chronicling the childhood and adolescence of Annie Bartlett from 1965 to 1972. Living with her father and older sister, Leigh, Annie longs to be a mermaid, but she knows she must first learn how to breathe underwater. That entails obsessively practicing in Widow Lake, where her mother drowned. Annie becomes increasingly more bold about flouting her father's endless swimming safety rules, while the sisters push the boundaries of social rules as well, exploring boys, beach parties and drag bars. These charming, sometimes startling stories reveal more than carefree experimentations with independence. The lake functions as a prismatic metaphor: it is Annie's dangerous temptation and her safest refuge, the only private space for fanciful dreaming and a protected zone keeping adult complexities at bay. Ziegler captures the secret realm of childhood well, echoing it in the imaginary underwater world beneath the lake that in turn mirrors the unfathomable ugliness lurking beneath the surface of Annie's home life. Even when Annie is molested by a neighbor, her shame and confusion are shadowed and sidelined by the drama of a violent fight between Leigh and her father. Eventually Annie acquires a camera, adjusting her focus while developing a talent for bearing witness to the external world. Ziegler ably inscribes the natural beauty of Florida as backdrop to a tumultuous domestic narrative about upsetting the balance of things and facing the hope as well as the fear that comes with change. In the final story, an epilogue, Ziegler deftly shifts the first-person perspective from Annie to her father, giving the reader a glimpse of the author's versatility while revealing yet another aspect of Annie's absorbing reality. (Dec.)