Sea Glass by Anita Shreve (Little Brown; 2002. ISBN 0-965-39543-x)
I picked up my trade paperback copy of Sea Glass a week ago when I was selling books at the Unitarian Church in Duluth as part of the Treasures of the Earth Craft Show. The crowd was consistent but still left me time to read in between customers and the host church was having a used book and CD sale (I also picked up 5 Tom Petty CDs for two bucks each; one heck of a buy!). I’m a fan of Shreve’s literary style and so, I laid out my fifty cents and the book was mine.
Sea Glass is a love story with little love. There’s an angst, an unfulfilled longing, that betrays the story of Honora and Sexton as they meet, wed, and live a tenuous life together on the cusp of the Great Depression. Shreve, as always, draws memorable landscapes but in this book, her characters do not achieve the vividness and reality of her earlier efforts, such as The Pilot’s Wife and The Weight of Water. I think this is especially fatal to Sexton, who comes off as a bit of a stereotypical cardboard cad from an old Fitzgerald story. I liked Honora, Vivian (more of her story needed to be told), and Alphonse. The other male protagonist, McDermott, also falls flat. It’s as if Shreve lost her strength to portray adult male characters and relied upon nuance and stereotype to carry them through the story.
A bit of a disappointment but a heck of a buy for fifty cents. 3 stars out of 5.
