What Happens At The End Of American Mermaid?

Question

A friend said the finale’s incredibly dark and surreal. Trying to gauge the spoilers about Penny’s final fate in Julia Langbein’s debut novel without reading full plot summaries.

Oddie Coleman · Answer

I haven’t read ‘American Mermaid’ yet, so there’ll be no spoilers for that book. For unexpectedly-reshaped-mermaid-themed endings recently I read ‘The Merman, My Man’. This had developed into a somewhat-bittersweet end to the central conflict of the book, as the human protagonist chose in the end to sever the magical bond between them and the merman in order for the latter to return to his distant, unfamiliar ocean kingdom alone, ever to be separated from the human. The book then went on to detail the quiet yet complex years of the human’s life in the years following this large, and difficult, sacrifice of his.

Cadence · Answer

A dramatic ending to Penny’s exploration of her sense of identity in a beautifully written, imaginative and innovative novel. The magical realism of her transformation into sea creatures as she walks into the sea is not finalized by the author and this ambivalence is part of the work’s beauty. Like writing, it is about the unknown. I felt a sense of disturbed wonder as I closed the book, feeling as if I had been submersed in deep water and just come up to surface.

Rachel · Answer

I spent the last chapters of ‘American Mermaid’ crying and then puzzling over the whole thing, unsure of how I felt about Penny’s actions and where she ends up. Did she become a ‘real’ mermaid, or did she just drop her expectations of herself and become who she wants to be? Either way, it was incredibly realistic, kind of like she’s left the story of her life open to wherever it goes next. And the way it mirrored her unfinished novel (which also ends in mid-sentence, as Penny is changing into something) was absolutely brilliant. I’m still trying to figure out the symbolism of her sinking typewriter.

Carter · Answer

I finish American Mermaid and need to scream at a pillow. You don’t get to know what happens to Penny in the end, but symbolically, it’s clear as crystal: she chose the ocean over a mundane existence and her art over conformity. All throughout the book, water finds its way into every scene, whether it’s a spilled cup of coffee or a downpour of rain. So while it’s all very messy and poetic, in the end it’s kind of inevitable.

Annabelle · Answer

The end of American Mermaid is super trippy and wonderfully wraps up the book’s themes of identity and transformation. So you don’t have to go read it (although you should!), Penny ultimately writes her truth and comes to terms with being both her struggling writer self and her mermaid self. You never quite know whether she really did transform or if it’s just been a really long, metaphoric journey to help her become a writer.

The rest of the imagery is so beautiful – the sea swallowing her up and her manuscript pages drifting away like curls of sea foam. It’s bittersweet, but it’s also full of hope. It’s a peaceful and chaotic place at the same time, all wrapped up in a big bow of ambiguity. Which is just the way I like it – a huge expanse of sea and horizon where the sky meets the sea, and you can never quite tell where one ends and the other begins.

Xena · Answer

Oh man, the ending of Penny's story was so beautiful in a weird, ambiguous way. After navigating writer's block and societal pressure to write what she thought other people wanted her to write, Penny at last arrives at a place where she is free to write the stories she most wants to tell. In a sense, she dives down into the ocean and is consumed by her stories, becoming one with them. The ending is hauntingly beautiful, and I particularly loved the last line where it's said that Penny has "becoming the tide" left to do. That line gave me shivers. It's just the kind of ending that leaves a reader determined to re-read the story in reverse to better understand what had transpired, and to try to decide for oneself how Penny arrived at the state in which she was found at the end of the book.

Victoria Krechting · Answer

I have to say that this is a very sit-with-it-for-a-while kind of ending. Initially, I was confused and didn’t quite like it. However, after thinking about it for a while, it all started to make sense. Many of the foreshadowing moments that I had somehow missed, as well as many of the minor characters in the middle of the book, became crucial. After about a week, I had a total switch in my perception, and I fell deeply in love with the ending. This is NOT an ending that gives immediate satisfaction. In fact, it’s so good that it grows on you, is slowly unfolded in your memory, and demands a re-reading. The only kind of ending that is comparable to this in terms of delayed impact is a well-laid trap. Most stories try to hit you over the head with them at the very end of the book. This story sets up a trap in your mind and then, long after you have finished reading, it springs.

Amber Lynn Wethington · Answer

Like all good aquatic stories, comparisons to others will inevitably occur, but this one stands out from the rest. Unlike the tragic love story of The Little Mermaid, the joyful adventure of Ponyo, or the odd bodily transformation of The Shape of Water, this one is a unique mix of all those characteristics, seen through the anxious, contemporary lens of its protagonist. Its ending resonates powerfully with our current moment of extreme self-definition, of climate anxiety, and of the desperate search for a way to escape systems that are crashing around us. It is a myth for the Anthropocene era, in which the siren call of the deep is not merely a personal but a planetary one. And that makes this fantasy more than merely pleasant: it is significant.

Miss Casseda · Answer

Talking about the ending of this book without giving away major plot points is kind of like trying to describe water without getting wet. The climax of the book centers around a crucial choice the main character makes regarding her identity and her power. As for the ‘mermaid’ part of the title American Mermaid, it becomes a real, terrifying thing in the story. The way the story resolves is very bitter but also, in its own strange way, hopeful. The book is definitely a subversion of the typical ‘fantasy coming-of-age’ story and it grounds the consequences of the main character’s actions in very real, very psychological space. I felt exhausted but satisfied at the end of the book. It didn’t end in a nice, tied up bow. In fact, the ending is very much not a happy-ever-after where the main character can just go back to her normal life. Instead, the book is more interested in asking the question of what normal would even look like for someone who is fundamentally and magically different from everyone else.

What Happens At The End Of American Mermaid?

9 Answers

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