The Lake of Dead Languages, written by Carol Goodman, published in 2002 by Ballantine Books has 390 pages and is featuring Jane, the Latin teacher whose room mates died 20 years ago in a tragical suicide incident on her school at Heart Lake. Now, 20 years later, Jane went back to Heart Lake when the incidents seem to repeat. Soon some dark secrets will reach the surface of this mystifying place...

Plot

The Lake of Dead Languages
Author	Carol Goodman
Cover artist	Mats Widén/Photonica
Language	English
Genre	Mystery
Publisher	Ballantine Books
Publication date	January 2002
Publication place	USA
Media type	Book
Pages	390
ISBN	0-345-45089-2

Part One – Overturn

After returning to her old school, Heart Lake (a boarding school for girls), former student Jane Hudson takes care of her Child, Olivia and starts teaching Latin there (p.9). She is informed about Heart Lake student's high potential of suicide which is due to their social and familiar backgrounds and their personal interests. Shortly after that there is a suicide attempt of one of her students, Ellen Craven (called Athena). However, there is something mysterious about the girl's suicide attempt, as she claims not to have hurt herself (p.78). Having been missed for a while, it turns out that another student, Melissa Randall (Aphrodite), presumably has also committed suicide. While she is pulled out of the lake, there is another discovery from Jane's past. (p.106)

Part Two – First Ice

Part two is a flashback of Jane's past which starts in her early childhood when she first meets Lucy and Matt Toller (p.111). Both having received the Iris Scholarship( p.136), Jane and Lucy attend Heart Lake School together with their new roommate Deirdre Hall. After sacrifices to the imaginary lake goddess and several Latin lessons, the three of them become friends(p.162). Occasionally they meet up with Matt and other friends at night down by the lake and celebrate different events, like the May Day ritual which involves drinking, drugs and dancing with boys. In her summer holidays Jane finds out her mother suffers from cancer, and she accompanies her during her last days in winter break. To her astonishment she arrives early on campus and finds her friend Deirdre having just given birth to a baby(p.215 f). Later it is revealed that the baby was actually Lucy's. As the baby had been born dead, Jane and Lucy let it sink in the lake (p.225).

Part Three – The Ice Harvest

To recover from the unfortunate events in part one, Jane and her daughter, Olivia, stay at the Westchester Aquadome, a hotel in which she reflects her past with Mitchell, her ex- husband (p.229 f). Policeman Roy Corey turns up out of the blue with unexpected news. Apparently the baby, which was thought to be Deirdre's, was actually Lucy and Matt's (p.243). It is also revealed that Helen Chambers, was Lucy's birth mother and so, Matt and Lucy weren't related at all. Back at school, Roy Corey turns up again to question Jane. She admits having made Deirdre's death look like suicide (p.295). After the conversation, they notice that somebody had been watching them. Other strange events occur, like an exchanged slide at a presentation or the figure watching Jane in Dr. Lockhart's office. One night, Jane is unable to sleep and takes a walk outside, where she coincidentally meets Mr.Corey (p.336 f). They spend the night together, only to wake up in the morning from a call telling them that Vesta had been murdered that night. Jane breaks up to finally find out what had really happened back then and to learn about the connection to the present. Pieces start to fit, when she finds out that Dr. Lockhart had also been a student at Heart Lake (p.356). In those days, they called her Albie. This makes her realize, what she hadn't seen the whole time and hurries back to the campus where she dreads to see Athena, tied up on the frozen lake (p.370 f). It had been Dr. Lockhart all the time. In the end everything goes out well and it is up to Jane what to do with Heart Lake, for she is the last heiress (p.388 f).

Cast

character constellation

Main characters

Jane Hudson

Jane Hudson was a student at Heart Lake and therefore she wanted to come back and work there as a Latin teacher(p.18). She had a little daughter called Olivia (p.18/19) who lives with her at the campus. Moreover she has a good relationship with her students and the other teachers. In her school days she had bad experiences because her best friends Lucy, Matt and Deidre drowned in the lake. It seemed that this bad experiences is repeated because of Athena's suicide attempt. Therefore she tries to help her and visit her in the hospital. This underlines her sympathetic character. At the end of the book Jane has an affair with Roy Corey (p.390,line:4).

Candance Lockhart

Albie (Latin name) was a student at 'Heart Lake'(p.356) where she idolized Lucy Toller (p.357). After the suicide of Lucy, the girl she was closely attached to, Albie blamed Jane Hudson for ruining her childhood. Twenty years later Dr. Lockhart becomes the school psychologist at 'Heart Lake'(p.13). She tries to destroy Jane, the Latin teacher, by re-enacting the past. She kills two of Jane's students, Sandy Jane's and Melissa Randall, in a dreadful way. In the end Dr. Lockhart goes totally berserk and dies in the lake (p.379) in the attempt of killing Jane (p.377).

Ellen Craven

Athena (Latin name) was a Latin student at Heart Lake (p.6,line 15). She shares a room (p.63,line:25) with Melissa Randall(Aphrodite;p.25,line:29) and Sandy James (Vesta;p.25,line:29). She is involved in Dr. Lockhart plans.

Lucy Toller

Lucy Toller went to Heart Lake with her best friend Jane. Moreover she was the best Latin student. If you go on reading you find out that Lucy's mother wasn't Hannah Toller but Helen Chambers. Due to the fact that Hannah Toller is not Lucy's mum, Matt is also not her brother. She kills herself because she is pregnant from Matt and she does not know that Matt is not her brother (p.353).

Roy Corey

He is the cousin of Matt and has been in love with Jane since they met at 'Heart Lake' twenty years ago. Later he helps solve the case as a police officer.

Minor characters

Helen Chambers (dead)

- Latin teacher (p.33,line:29)

- Lucy`s mother (p.354)

- Hannah Toller's best friend (p.354,line:14)

- lesbian

Deidre Hall (dead)

- Lucy`s best friend

- student at Heart Lake

- died because she rebels against Lucy

Matt Toller

- Hannah Toller`s son

- Lucy`s step bother (p.353)

- secret love between Lucy and Matt (p.246)

Hannah Toller

- Matt`s mother

- Helen Chambers best friend (p.354,line: 14)

Olivia

- daughter of Jane and Mitchell

Mitchell

- ex husband of Jane

Margaret Hudson(Poole)

- died of cancer (p.199,line:6)

- Jane`s mother (p.191,line:28)

Mrs. Poole

- grandmother of Jane

- mother of Iris Crevecoeur

Melissa Randal

- friends with Ellen Craven and Sandy James

- Latin student

- drowned in the lake

Sandy James (Vesta)

- friends with Ellen Craven and Melissa Randal

- died in an electrical storm

Octavia & Flavia

- two vietnamese twins (p.7,line:24)

Celeste Buehl

- dean and principle (p.22/23)

- homoerotic affair with Helen Chambers

Myra Todd

- science teacher

Simon Ross

- maths teacher

Meryl North

- history teacher (p.23, line:7)

Gwendoline Marsh

- English teacher (p.7,line:33)

Tracy Beade

- art teacher (p.23,line:7/8)

Elsa Pike

- sports teacher

Setting

The main action of the novel takes part in Corinth, particularly in the area around Heart Lake School. The school is very old and has been use for a long time so that the room of the girls are very neglected. The lake that lies peacefully near the school is described as heart – shaped. An extraordinary aspect of the lake are the three–sister–rocks which look very similar to persons. On its coast,there is the small Schwanenkill ice–house, where ice was harvested a long time ago and a swimming beach, where the school girls spend a lot of time in summer. This place, especially the lake and the area around is also mirrored in other books of Carol Goodman. She was inspired by Mohonk mountain house, where she spent a lot of time and hikes very often.The first person narrator lives close to the lake with her daughter Olivia (who later moves to her dad). The lake is associated to the school motto „Cor te reducit.“, which means: „The heart leads you back“. The social environment is based on the fact that Heart Lake School is a semi–sex school for girls. Some teachers, especially Jane (the first person narrator) have a special relationship to their students. She treats them more like friends than just like students.

The General Meaning of Death

In every part of the book death plays a different role. Death itself is mirrored in the main characters and also in the setting, especially Heart Lake is a powerful symbol of momentariness (e.g. prologue, p.1). When the lake is frozen, you can see through the ice, where the past is buried ( e.g. page 16 "They say that when the lake freezes over the faces of the girls can be seen peering out from beneath the ice"). Furthermore "the ice makes a noise like moaning, and that sound, like the lapping of the water, draws girls out onto the lake's frozen surface, where the sisters wait to drag the unsuspecting skater through the cracks in the ice",p.16).Ominous messages from the past dredge up forgotten memories at the moment the ice is melting (e.g. when the dead body of Lucy's baby is found in the lake after Aphrodite was drown, p.106/107). Another different role of death are the students in the present who are obsessed with death (e.g. they wear black clothes and dark makeup. Moreover the girls have skull jewelery and colored hair, p.5-9). The only living connection between the past and the present, which includes death, is Albie or Dr. Lockhart. Revenge is a motive for death in this book, as Dr. Lockhart tries to kill Jane's students and Jane to affect the protagonist by reminding her on the dramatic past she experienced at Heart Lake.

Reception

The Lake of Dead Languages received mostly positive reviews in the past years. Many newspapers and magazines like the Time Out New York or Los Angeles Times Book Review wrote praising articles and quotes about the novel. More than two third of all the people who read the book liked it and added positive reviews Carol Goodman gained many readers with her first novel The Lake of Dead Languages. Some people consider it poetic, suspenseful and mysterious. Other ones really like the fascinating plot and the high stylistic level. The main reason of the fascination by the readers is the appearance of many questions coming up in their minds so the readers are forced to continue reading until they get the answers. Due to that one part of the readers think the book has an unpredictable ending meanwhile the other part thinks it has a transparent ending. In addition to that they represent the opinion of a very difficult book to read because Carol Goodman gets caught into detailed descriptions. Overall it is a worthy book for friends of murder mystery and crime. It is also a commendable book for people who liked The Secret History by Donna Tartt. One of Carol Goodmans books, The Seduction of Water, won the Hammett Prize in 2003 and others of her novels have been nominated for the Dublin/IMPAC Award twice, the Simon & Schuster/Mary Higgins Clark Awardand the Nero Wolfe Award

Sources

The Lake of Dead Languages

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lake-of-dead-languages-carol-goodman/1100294169 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/120274.The_Lake_of_Dead_Languages http://www.carolgoodman.com/Content/The_Lake_of_Dead_Languages.asp http://www.librarything.com/work/15064

Every page reference refers to the original book "The Lake of Dead Languages" written by Carol Goodman (see top of the page)