The Deep End of the Ocean

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Title The Deep End of the Ocean

First edition cover
Author	Jacquelyn Mitchard
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Allen Lane
Released	June 1996
Media type	Print (Hardback& Paperback)
Pages	434 pp (hardback edition) & 528 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-670-86579-6 (hardback edition) & ISBN 0-00-649909-0 (paperback edition)

The Deep End of the Ocean is a best-selling novel by Jacquelyn Mitchard, released in 1996 . It is about an American middle class, suburban family that is torn apart when the youngest son is kidnapped and raised by a mentally ill woman, until he appears at the frontdoor step of his real mother and asks if he can mow the lawn.

Contents 1 Plot introduction 2 Plot summary 3 Characters in "The Deep End of the Ocean" 4 Awards and nominations 5 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations 6 External links

[edit] Plot introduction

Wisconsin photographer and housewife Beth Cappadora leaves her youngest son, Ben, alone with his older brother for a brief moment at a Chicago hotel, while attending her high school reunion. The oldest son lets go of his hand and Ben vanishes without a trace. Beth goes into an extended mental breakdown and it is left to her husband and owner of a restaurant, Pat, to force his wife to robotically care for their remaining two children; 7-year-old Vincent and infant daughter Kerry.

[edit] Plot summary

Nine years pass, and the Cappadora family is still together and have moved to Chicago. On the outside, they seem to have gotten over their grief. Yet, one day a young boy named Sam asks Beth if she needs the lawn mowed.

Beth suspects that this boy (who just happens to live with his father a two blocks away) is in fact her lost son, and while Ben mows the lawn, she takes photographs of him to show to her husband and teenage son (who says that he suspected all along). The parents contact Detective Candy Bliss who pops in to offer wise, albeit often cryptic and conflicting, advice to Beth. With very little detective work or discussion of the relevant legal issues, it is learned that at the college reunion in Chicago, the celebrity alumna Cecile Lockhart kidnapped Ben, raised Sam as her own child until she was committed to a mental hospital and left Sam to be raised by the sensitive and intellectual George Karras.

Ben was raised by a Greek-American father for nine years, while his biological parents are Italian-American. Ben is a polite and intellectual American boy who takes great pride in participating in Greek cultural rituals, much to the frustration of Pat who wants to pretend that Ben was never really abducted and thus can be the son that he wants him to be if only he uses enough discipline. Ben is faced with the ethnic identity that he grew up with, and the ethnic identity he would have known had he not been kidnapped. It would have made more sense to have had Ben raised by a Jewish family because it is difficult to accept how the Hollywoodized American ethnic differences between modern American Italians and Greeks explains the slight, but apparent, Archie Bunker reaction Pat gives to his son's attachment to Greek traditions. Granted, it is hard to accept the idea that a contemporary American boy (almost a teenager) would proudly lead a demonstration of a Greek dance at a public opening of his biological father's Italian restaurant.

Aside from ethnicity, there is an underlined theme in the story about women's empowerment as Beth awakens from her nine year depression to argue with Pat about how to deal with Ben's dual-ethnic and family identity. Once Beth finds Ben she also finds her own inner strength, and argues with Pat about the terms that Ben must obey in order to become integrated into the family. Pat wants Ben to abandon what he thought was his name, ethnic identity, and his father. Beth wants her son to be happy and feels that forcing Ben to abandon the past nine years of his life will only drive him away, both physically and emotionally.

Vincent sees the presence of Ben as a symbol of his own guilt at allowing his younger brother to be kidnapped, and a symbol of the anger that he has built up over the past nine years in living with parents that were too caught up in their grief to give him the love and attention that he needed. His younger sister seems the most well-adjusted of the children, but that is because she was too young to remember Ben. Vincent and Pat filled in the role as parents when Beth was trapped in her depression.

Ben's adoptive father agrees to move away, thus removing from the story Ben's ability to walk two blocks and return to the comfort of the father and bed that he grew up with. However, he does not tell anyone where he is going, and may as well have been Ben's second parent to commit suicide because he simply vanishes. Torn between two worlds and having lost both of the parents that he knew, Ben expresses suicidal feelings to Beth, who like everyone else in the tale, seems to be oblivious to the idea of seeking out mental health services, in favor of a hug.

Ben's only memory of his biological family is one of brother Vincent and thus over a one-on-one basketball game he absolves his brother of any responsibility for his abduction, and agrees to stop running away in order to build upon his memories with his older brother. Inside the house Pat and Beth see these events and reconcile. What happens to these characters after the credits roll is left unresolved. Pat still has problems loving his sons; Ben because he can not relate to his personality and Vincent because he does not connect his teenager rebellion and cynicism to nine years of bad parenting.

Beth has regained her position in the family as an equal parent, but is oblivious to the fact that Ben and Vincent's emotional problems are going to require years of intense therapy. The friendship that she made with Candy Bliss mysteriously erodes to the point where the family seems to reject the friendship or support of any outsiders, be they friends, family, social workers, or police.

[edit] Characters in "The Deep End of the Ocean"

• Beth Cappadora – the main protagonist
• Ben – her younger son who goes missing
• Vincent – her older son
• Kerry – Beth's infant daughter
• Candy Bliss – detective
• Cecile Lockhart – original culprit
• Pat Cappadora – Beth's husband
• Sam – boy who first offers to mow the lawn
• George Karras – neighbour left to care for Sam

[edit] Awards and nominations

The novel was chosen as an Oprah Book Club® selection in September 1996 (ISBN 0-451-18692-3)

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

There is a 1999 film of the same name based on the novel. The film is rated PG-13 for some profanity, and drama. It stars Michelle Pfeiffer.

[edit] External links

• The Deep End of the Ocean at the Internet Movie Database
• PfeifferTheFace's The Deep End of the Ocean - At Michelle Pfeiffer, The Face