The Deepest Lake by Andromeda Romano-Lax
Caution! The Deepest Lake may keep you up at night compelled to read on to discover what happens next in this exciting, unpredictable suspense-filled thriller.
A Journey from Travel Guides to Fiction
Andromeda Romano-Lax is a former freelance journalist and travel writer of a dozen or more natural history and travel guidebooks. Since then she has focused her considerable talent and exceptional skill on works of fiction producing six novels to date. Her debut novel The Spanish Bow (2011) has been translated into eleven languages and was selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice. The plots include topics reflecting the author’s diverse interests in history, science, AI technology, arts and culture, and adventurous journeys. She has taught at the University of Alaska-Anchorage’s low residency MFA Creative Writing program. Andromeda Romano-Lax also works as a freelance book coach with fiction writers and memoirists. One can be assured she is nothing like Eva Marshall, the acclaimed but domineering, tyrannical fictional writing teacher, and memoirist who is the rot at the core of The Deepest Lake.
Lake Atitlán: The Mysterious Heart of the Story
Lake Atitlán, meaning lake between the waters, is located in the western highlands of Guatemala approximately 90 miles from Guatemala City. Due to the rough roads, a bus journey from the airport to San Felipe, the “steepest town in the country” and the setting for this novel, can take 3.5 hours. The lake is the most visited tourist attraction in the country with the main mode of transportation being taxi boats. Tuk tuks (3-wheeled gasoline-powered auto rickshaws) are readily available within towns and villages.
The small towns and villages around the lake are inhabited by the indigenous Mayans who retain their cultural heritage and by businesses catering to the tourists. This deepest lake in Central America was formed inside an enormous caldera created by a super volcanic eruption that occurred an estimated 84,000 years ago. The average depth is about 505 feet with a maximum depth of 1120 feet. This picture postcard setting of intense blue-green water reflecting the clear skies is enhanced by the sight of four volcanoes of varying heights surrounding the lake. It is the essential center for the setting of this arresting novel where an aspiring young writer named Jules was last glimpsed from a distance by a tourist on the shoreline.
A Mother’s Unyielding Quest for Answers
Rose, a grief-stricken mother, would go to the ends of the earth to seek the full truth about the reported death of her only child Jules. Until recently mother and daughter were so close, it was as if the umbilical cord had not been severed at birth. However, since graduating from college, Jules communicated less with her mother who encouraged her to attend graduate school to obtain an MFA Degree in Creative Writing. Her daughter vacillated, torn between the need for an advanced writing degree and the additional expenses for her father Matt.
Her parents divorced after her dad’s rather stereotypical midlife crisis resulted in an affair and subsequent marriage to a younger woman. In a New York minute, Matt had an adult daughter about to graduate from college and was simultaneously doing diaper duty with two very young children. Matt’s finances are strained by the additional responsibilities. Cognizant of his economic pinch, she lied to both parents about submitting grad school applications and decided instead to travel to Guatemala to attend her literary hero Eva Marshall’s costly writing workshop. She deliberately ignored their concerns about US State Department travel advisories warning, “Exercise a high degree of caution in Guatemala due to the threat of violent crime.”
Jules’ intelligence and capability landed her a job as personal assistant to this charismatic memoirist. Her text messages to Rose and Matt were initially upbeat and enthusiastic, later turning despondent, then abruptly ceasing altogether.
A Psychological Thriller with Unexpected Twists
The Deepest Lake is written from two points of view: Rose’s primary narration alternating with the voice of the deceased. Jules is believed to have accidentally drowned in Lake Atitlán three agonizing months ago and her body has not been found. It’s a baffling puzzlement to her grief-stricken parents as their daughter had a life-long terror of water and had avoided both swimming and boating.
Grief-stricken, her father flew to Guatemala and spent several frustrating weeks attempting to locate her body. He hired private helicopters to circle the lake in the approximate area where she was last seen, paid to have the lake dragged with heavy chains, and sent several deep-sea divers to the bottom but the only trace found of this bright young woman was her distinctive cover-up shirt lying on the shore. The local sheriff cited the official investigative ruling of accidental drowning and did not encourage hope.
Enigmatically, writer and workshop leader Eva Matthews refused to speak to either Matt or Rose, didn’t respond to emails and through an assistant referred them to her police statement. Matt, believing he had done all he could, returned home to Evanston, Illinois defeated and resigned to his daughter’s unfortunate death.
Refusing to concede defeat, Rose re-organized her demanding work schedule, signed up for the next Atitlán writing workshop using her maiden name, and made travel arrangements planning her own undercover investigation. She is bewildered by the large number of women who willingly paid nearly $6000 for a less than luxurious six-day workshop which included shared accommodations, limited lessons and guidance, minimal contact with the workshop leader, and excursions available only if additional fees were paid.
Eva Matthews is rudely dismissive of the short writing samples each participant supplied with their applications and not at all supportive of their efforts. After chatting with repeat visitors, Rose is astonished that few if any previous attendees have met with any success in publishing their work.
Beginning to conjure the memory of “The Great and Powerful Oz”, even casual conversations with Eva needed to be scheduled through her major domo and protector Barbara.
Observant Rose notices the clothing and shoe donations the participants have been asked to bring for the orphanage are crammed with others in a storage shed and not distributed. She suspects that Eva has been skimming thousands of American dollars from cash donations made by her rich and adoring alumni destined for the poor turning over just a few hundred while retaining the remainder. When she encounters a German tourist with Jules’ precious inscribed copy of Eva’s memoir in his possession which he claims she gave to him, alarm bells are triggered. Rose is playing a dangerous game with a frightening adversary who, although a widely admired author, may well be a conniving, lying sociopath.
The Deepest Lake is a foreboding psychological thriller that holds a reader’s interest until the final surprising pages. Andromeda Romano-Lax also demonstrates a dark humor as she explores toxic writing coaches and high-end, exclusive writing workshops. Her work compares favorably with thriller/mystery writers such as Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, Lisa Gardner and T.C. Boyle among others. The Deepest Lake is well suited for book discussion groups and would make a riveting film with the right director.
Incidentally, if readers should desire a safer firsthand experience of a beautiful lake in a caldera, Crater Lake in Oregon is the deepest lake in North America and the sixth deepest in the world.
About Andromeda Romano-Lax:
Born in Chicago and now a resident of Vancouver Island, Canada, Andromeda Romano-Lax worked as a freelance journalist and travel writer before turning to fiction. Her first novel, The Spanish Bow, was translated into eleven languages and chosen as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, BookSense pick, and one of Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year. Her next three novels, The Detour, Behave (an Amazon Book of the Month), Plum Rains (winner of the Sunburst Award), and Annie and the Wolves reflect her diverse interest in the arts, history, science, and technology, as well as her love of travel and her time spent living abroad.
Andromeda co-founded and continues to blog for 49 Writers, a nonprofit organization. She has taught fiction in the University of Alaska Anchorage low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program and currently works with novelists and memoirists as a freelance book coach.
A late-blooming Ironman triathlete, she lives with her family on a small island off a bigger island in British Columbia, where her favorite activities are trail running, cycling, and ocean swimming.
