THE FIRE, THE WATER, AND MAUDIE MCGINN

Each wave is a nice start.

Novel by Sally J. Pla; reviewed by Pennell Paugh

July 9, 2023 (San Diego) - San Diego author Sally J. Pla has released her fourth novel, The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn.

Autistic Maudie looks forward to summers spent with Dad in California. This year, she has a secret, one Mom warned her never to share. It’s about her stepdad's anger and physical abuse.

I’ve been spending summers with Dad ever since I was four, the year my parents got divorced. I wasn’t upset when they split. I was too young to think or do anything but accept it. Same deal about a year and a half ago, when Mom started dating Ron. That, too, felt like just another wave of change washing over me. Wave after wave. More and more things to accept, to let happen to me. Life has always felt like I’m just a spectator, along for the ride.

When Mom and Ron got married, it was a positive change, in one major way: it solved Mom’s money worries. And it got us out of our sad, shabby, roach-infested apartment, and into Ron’s super luxury condo in a golf resort. Ron loves golf. So now my mom loves golf, too. Whatever Ron likes, she likes. Whatever Ron does, she does.

I hate golf, and I hate that condo. It’s all hard surfaces and sharp corners, marble and glass and something underfoot called terrazzo, which is hard as rock—your teeth jitter and your heels hurt when you walk across it barefoot—and you do not want to fall or hit your head on that floor. Take it from one who knows.

Dad’s cabin in Molinas, on the other hand, is all honey pine woods, sunny windows, and overstuffed chairs you can flop into any way you want. There’s a cast-iron woodstove in the corner, and bookshelves that Dad built himself, with fancy carved animal designs along the top. They’re crammed with dusty books and wooden toys he’s carved for me through the years.

The summer begins with Maudie staying in her dad’s cabin deep in the forest. He built it by hand. However, a wildfire strikes, forcing the two of them to abandon the cabin. Her dad takes them to a beach town where he grew up. There he finds a job in town leaving junior-high age Maudie in the care of a lifeguard and the people who run the gift shop.

Over the summer, Maudie befriends a large number of people and even meets a girl who has issues like her own; one whose mother runs a special school that would be perfect for Maudie. While she has her moments, Maudie’s autism no longer feels like the big deal her mom makes it out to be. But as time nears for her to return to live with her stepdad, her secret burns to be told. Will Maudie find the strength to reveal the awful truth? By some miracle, could they find some way for her to stay with Dad?

Sally J. Pla has English degrees from Colgate and Penn State and has worked as a business journalist and in public education. She has three sons, a husband, and an enormous fluffy dog. Other books she has written include The Someday Birds, Stanley Will Probably Be Fine, and Benjii, the Bad Day, and Me.