Mermaids is a 1986 coming-of-age novel by American writer Patty Dann, published in 1986 by Ticknor and Fields.[2] Its plot follows a 14-year-old girl growing up with a wayward single mother in 1960s New England.
Dann, a graduate of the University of Oregon and Columbia University, was working as a secretary in 1984, having abandoned her career aspiration of becoming a writer.[2] In 1986, while working as a secretary for A&E, she began revising Mermaids, a period piece coming-of-age novel about a teenage girl set in the 1960s, a draft of which she had submitted as her MFA thesis.[2] During the redrafting process, she changed the narrative perspective from third-person to first-person.[2] After completing the redrafting of the novel, Dann found a literary agent who sold the novel to Ticknor and Fields, who published it in 1986.[2]