Laurie Foos's The Blue Girl follows three women and their daughters after they witness the near drowning of a girl whose skin is entirely blue. Irene's daughter, Audrey, is the only one who took action to save the girl. Surrounded by listless residents and surprised city vacationers, Audrey resuscitated the girl alone. But everyone who witnessed the event experienced an awakening.
The blue-skinned girl introduces an element of magical realism into a novel of otherwise dull and ordinary lives. She stirs in the three mothers memories of ambitions and dreams they once possessed before they became entrenched in disappointments. No longer able to tolerate the pressure of their own secrets, they begin to visit the blue girl at night as she recovers, feeding her homemade moon pies into which they bake their anxieties and anger.
The daughters know their mothers' moon pies are not for a bake sale as they've been told. Already at the pinnacle of adolescent change, the girls are pushed out of childhood by the near drowning. Audrey cannot sleep, haunted by the memory of the girl's blue skin and cold lips. She will not discuss the girl, while her friend Caroline thinks of nothing else. The girl becomes an obsession for her, and she tries to understand what she saw through studying science. The third daughter, Rachel, tries to escape the trauma by pursuing an unsatisfying relationship with Caroline's older brother.
Told in alternating points of view, The Blue Girl explores how these relationships both define and confine each of the women. Foos has crafted a surreal story that is suffocating yet utterly compelling. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash.