I begin reading with envy as M.L.Stedman’s playful yet adept metaphors slip off sentences, like droplets off the oars of a dinghy, each one plunging back into the ocean to collect another stream from which to compose those few extra words that create more than just mere description, revealing an image and inviting us deeper into the world she paints with words, an island hundreds of miles from civilisation, where only the two oceans, a grand light, the twinkling stars and the tall, elegant, imposing bearer of that light keep a young, newly married couple company.
There are times when the ocean is not the ocean – not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only the gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits. Those are the nights the light is needed most.
Post World War I
It is the early years after the first world war and many families have been affected by the loss of their sons, Tom survived the war but carries the guilt of a survivor who has seen too much and wishes they could have done more. Isabel’s family is no stranger to the grief of losing not one but two sons, within days of each other, never quite giving up the illusion of hope that maybe it was all an error and one of them will return.
The Isolation of Lighthouse Living
Tom accepts a job on Janus Rock, a lighthouse many miles out to sea, with visits to the mainland years apart, the island, the sea and that reassuring steadfast light his sole companions. Until Isobel joins him in wedlock and on the island will encounter her own form of grief, yearning for the child that never quite makes it into life.
After the last stillborn child, a dingy washes ashore with the body of a young man and a baby wrapped in a bundle, miraculously still alive. Convincing her husband to delay the inevitable moment, the two fall into a conspiracy of their own making, one that lifts Isabel’s spirit while crushing Tom’s peace of mind.
When he wakes sometimes from dark dreams of broken candles, and compasses without bearings, he pushes the unease down, lets the daylight contradict it. And isolation lulls him with the music of the lie.
Inspired by Cape Leeuwin Photo by Augusta Margaret River Tourist Association
At times uncomfortable reading, Stedman keeps you guessing and wanting to turn the pages, as the behaviours of the female characters are as unpredictable as the currents of the ocean herself. Tom, like the lighthouse itself is resolute, yet vulnerable to the consequences of his steadfast loyalty.
The choice of a third person narrative perspective has the effect of keeping the reader at a certain emotional distance and prevented me from being drawn into empathising with the characters, never being truly brought deep into their minds to see things from their perspective, thus we remain at a safe distance ourselves, just like those ships out at sea.
I did wonder why the author hadn’t taken that leap and told the story from the perspective of one of the central characters, but at the same time, sense the hesitation to go there. In all, a magnificent debut and thought-provoking novel, with many fabulous evocations of the turmoil of the sea and humanity.
Word by Word 
I love the first paragraph of this post. It really put me into the feeling of the book. Very well written! 🙂
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Thanks Deidre, this book gets off to a really great start setting the scene in a way I really loved, I adore images and metaphors of the sea.
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Sounds like one of those books you can’t put down, until you’ve finished it.
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It is, and one to try and savour as well.
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I’ve downloaded an extract. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Great, I hope you enjoy it to take the next step 🙂
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What a wonderful book, even though I found it heart-breaking. I have read a lot of books about World War I but not so many on the aftermath. Tom’s terrible guilt at having survived combines with Isabel’s devastation at loosing her unborn babies. I followed it up with Austen’s “Persuasion”, since it it mentioned. I’m not sure I’ve read it before. A woman’s lot has certainly improved since those days.
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So glad you enjoyed it, devastating though it was, it must be terrible to be a war survivor, and to be those who await their return, only to find them unable to relate in the same way, forever changed by their horrendous experience and sickened to be called heroes.
I’ve not read Persuasion but it is the one I am most attracted to, I really enjoyed recently the film ‘The Jane Austen BookClub’, an excellent precis of the books and characters.
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I really enjoyed this book. It was a fast but also fascinating book. I felt like I had become entangled in these people’s life and wondered how I would feel when I became free. Excellent story.
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I wondered the same Judy, I felt like I wanted to talk about this book, just like one of those townspeople to discuss what was going on. The struggle between having empathy for someone and knowing what’s right and wrong make for an interesting discussion.
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Claire,
Not only do I want to read this book, but I want to remind myself not to miss your next blog. Your writing and metaphors are just as eloquent as your subject’s. Congratulations on having the ability to inspire and challenge at least one of your readers to write with more grace and style.
Sincerely, Carole Avila
Eve’s Amulet, Book 1
Soon to be published by Black Opal Books
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Thank you Carole for your kind words, I love when passages of a book transport us and to write about that close to the moment when it happens for me is wonderful, sometimes I have to just set aside the book and write those things down before they leave me forever, I am happy to have captured a little of that here, happily inspired by the authors wonderful descriptions.
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Hi – great post, and you’ve inspired me to read this book. I enjoyed ‘A Month In The Country’, which was similar in its theme of the broken lives that followed the First World War. Sounds like his one takes a very different angle – must check it out.
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Hi, can you tell me who wrote “A month in the country”. I’ve found five so far!
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Are you referring to the J.L.Carr book? Thanks for the recommendation.
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I’ve just started it, and it’s very good. I’ve also ordered the Jane Austen Book Club DVD. Your blog is a fund of information. Thank you.
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Great to have you onboard 🙂 The film is great and so were the bonus extracts about Jane Austen herself.
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Claire, what gifts you provide your readers … not simply with your perceptive reviews but also your eloquent prose. Thank you and merci!
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Thank you for your kind words Patricia, lifting spirits everywhere 🙂
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Claire, I’m thinking that you don’t need to envy anyone for their glittering metaphors, dripping like dew drops on to the page…have you re-read your own treasure trove of jewels and gem stones, that array of riches you gift your reader with every time you set pen to paper?
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Always aspiring to them Edith 🙂 and thank you for your so kind words, it’s that perception when reading that they seem to have come naturally to the writer and I know how often they don’t quite arrive or aren’t as visual as I would like them to be, I aspire to be able to speak or write them unthinking 🙂 and I certainly know that they must be practiced, just like poetry, well they are poetry aren’t they?
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