Sea Glass
- Brand: Unbranded
Description
Vivian, a friend that Honora met on the beach was smart, sassy and wise. Vivian can see a way to the future and she valued friendship as it should be. Like those translucent shards that Honora finds on the beach, Sea Glass is layered with the textures, colors, and voices of another time. There is Vivian, an irreverent Boston socialite who becomes Honora's closest friend even as she rejects every form of convention. McDermott, a man who works in a nearby mill, presses Honora's deepest notions of trust--even as he embroils her in a dangerous dispute. And there's Francis, a boy whose openness becomes the bond that holds these people together as their world is flying apart. The heroine of this book, Honora, is a wonderful character. we meet her as she embarks on a new marriage to a slightly swarmy typewriter salesman in the pre-depression 20's in a small coastal town in NH. The depression hits, and her quiet, muted efficiency as a housewife becomes a beacon of stability and honor as the people around her become involved in labor strikes and violence. She collects pieces of sea glass from the beach - ones that have been worn smooth from their time in the ocean, but...more The heroine of this book, Honora, is a wonderful character. we meet her as she embarks on a new marriage to a slightly swarmy typewriter salesman in the pre-depression 20's in a small coastal town in NH. The depression hits, and her quiet, muted efficiency as a housewife becomes a beacon of stability and honor as the people around her become involved in labor strikes and violence. She collects pieces of sea glass from the beach - ones that have been worn smooth from their time in the ocean, but that have become so strong they never break, and that glass becomes the metaphor for Honora in the maelstrom of the times. Told from the rotating perspective of 5 different characters. Written in a quiet and muted literary style that matches Honora's key attributes, yet the novel becomes
I also found absolutely fascinating the descriptions of Sea Glass, those colourful shards of glass smoothed by the sea that one sometimes comes across on beaches. Anita Shreve cleverly uses Honora’s collection of these shards as a link throughout. I always love the way Anita Shreve writes about character interaction. Using her words, I can always picture exactly the way a person is moving, smiling, speaking, and how they are feeling. Maybe that's why I'm so addicted to her despite the fact that half of her books are disappointing.
Throughout the story, Honora walked the beach looking for smooth sea glass. She imagined that different colors of glass represented the various people she knew. The sea glass was bounced around by the waves like Honora was challenged by life. But they both ended up beautiful and unbreakable. This is a fast and easy read set in 1929 New England during the start of the depression. Our characters include a young newlywed couple, an 11 year old boy, a young 20-something man who has worked in the mills all his life, a 30-something wealthy woman, and a few communists to round out the group. The very unlikely people come together and their lives change forever. Although I always find Anita Shreve's novels somewhat depressing, there's no denying that she produces extremely well-written and, in this and many other instances, mesmerizing stories. The year is 1929 as Honora and Sexton Beecher begin their life together as husband and wife. The home Sexton sets out to buy is somewhat beyond his means, but through a clever deception, he manages to secure a mortgage for the home, which is situated directly on the beach of a small New England town. In the town itself, Ely Falls, most of the residents work at the town's clothing mills and live very menial, hard-working lives. Initially, Sexton sees himself above these people and, as a typewriter and business-machines salesman, he does, indeed, earn a better living than the mill workers. It is not long before Honora senses her husband's deceit and by Christmas of that year, all their dreams come crashing down on them. As the entire country is falling on bad times, the bank calls in the Beecher's home loan and Sexton loses his job. His deceit is discovered and, suddenly, he is relegated to taking a job at the mill, something upon which he'd looked down his nose only 6 short months ago. Set in New Hampshire during the troubled years of 1929/30, Sea Glass is about the coming together of a motley collection of people in troubled times. It was a strange time for them all as although the strikes and Wall Street crash were affecting them all they were happy that summer of 1930, in their innocence not knowing how disastrously it would all end. As the reader I certainly had no inkling of how things were going to turn out, for me the sign of a well told story. A heartbreaking and vividly descriptive insight into the far reaching consequences of The Wall Street crash and the mill strikes.
Also, as in Storm Glass, the author keeps spending loads of time having her characters alluding to events that happened in her 'Study' series, so basically she is spoiling that entire series for anyone who hasn't yet read them (myself). Yes, the first series was successful... but the author is trying to scrape by with a new series, while the characters in the 'new' series just rehash events in the old one.This book sees Opal complete more missions for the keep and then through to graduation and stepping out on her own to take control of her destiny, or so she thinks. I didn't see such a dramatic ending, these events will definitely give a new slant to the final book. I find myself on a countdown to the release date of "Spy Glass" in September 2010. My heart went for Francis, his mother was to my father's. In the Great Depression, families were divided up between the relatives.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
-
Sold by: Fruugo