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Shreve brings us some great characters along with a good historical novel based around the time of The Depression after the stock market collapse of 1929. If you don’t know much about this period she provides interesting insight into the consequences of the crash for people, business and relationships again showing her great flair for attention to detail.
It is always a shame to finish one of her books so it’s a good job she’s fairly prolific.
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Synopsis
Sea Glass by Anita Shreve
The year is 1929 and Honora Beecher and her husband, Sexton, are just settling into a new marriage and a cottage on the coast of New Hampshire. While Honora fixes up the derelict house and searches for bits of sea glass on the beach, Sexton risks everything they own to buy the house they both love. Along with millions of other Americans, he is blindsided by the stock market crash and finds himself penniless. The only work he can find is at a nearby mill, where a labour conflict is erupting into violence. Shaken by forces they scarcely understand, Honora and Sexton try to build a marriage and home while overwhelmed by passions of every kind.
Writing with the power and immediacy that have made her novels bestsellers, Shreve unfolds interlocking lives, each with its own share of love, loss and challenge. This is another gripping and unforgettable story of the human heart from one of the most accomplished novelists of our time.
Reviews
'A beautifully visualised novel of emotional discovery'
SUNDAY TIMES
; 'Shreve skilfully unfolds her story of interlinking lives, displaying an intimate knowledge of the workings of the human heart
WOMAN AND HOME
; 'A finely written story of human beings pushed to the edge
SUNDAY MIRROR
; 'When violence erupts, the ensuing tragedy is all the more heartbreaking when described with Shreve's polished restraint
DAILY MAIL
This powerful novel about society, human nature, love and deception is set in New Hampshire in 1929 and 1930. It is beautifully and sparely written and deals with a period of history often neglected by modern writers. Honora and Sexton have had six brief months of a marriage which, if not ideal, is loving and sometimes exciting. They scrape enough money together to buy their house by the sea, Sexton does well selling typewriters and Honora gathers the 'sea glass
that fascinates her. Into this idyll comes the Wall Street Crash and nothing is ever the same again. Skilfully woven through Honora
's story are those of McDermott the mill worker and his efforts to make the trades union strong, and of Francis, out to work too young, supporting his mother and the family. There too is Vivian, a summer visitor to the shore who provides practical help. These characters form a gradually tightening nucleus as the Depression deepens, workers strike and food is scarce. The plot moves elegantly between times and characters. Present and past lives merge so that information is built up like a dossier. Gradually the significance of the sea glass is revealed as we begin to understand Honora's background. As we learn more it is clear that Sexton is not the man she thought he was and she can no longer close her eyes to reality. Tension builds as the novel draws to a close. Just as a new and more satisfying love comes to Honora the horror that has threatened materializes and the story ends on a note of brutal realism, mitigated only by a glimmer of hope. There will be a future for Honora, but not the one she has imagined. Only the sea glass has retained its original brightness. (Kirkus UK)'
About the Author
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Anita Shreve is the author of fifteen best-selling novels which have spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller Lists. The Weight of Water was short listed for the Orange Prize and The Pilot’s Wife was selected by Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Book club’ series. Shreve started her writing career as a journalist and her award-winning short stories and non-fiction have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. Shreve is married to a man she met when she was 13. She has two children and three stepchildren and lives in Massachusetts.
Anita Shreve was our Author of the Month in February 2012.
Author photo © Deborah Feingold
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Family Drama
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