Sea Glass
Large Print Edition
By Anita Shreve
Little, Brown and Company Large Print, (2002)
ISBN: 0-316-73373-3
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by Auggie Moore - August 25, 2002
If you're looking for some light reading this summer, I highly recommend Anita Shreve's book, Sea Glass. Despite being a bit of a 'romance', this book has a literary quality and it is peopled with complex and rich characters, interwoven into a book that while romantic, also has a gritty side.
The story is set in a quaint little beach house that has seen better days. It is the ideal honeymoon home for Honora and Sexton Beecher, who happily settle into their new nest. But their life is not to be as idyllic as it first appears. Sexton, who makes a living as a typewriter salesman, senses Honora's love for the imperfect house set along the New Hampshire beach, and he buys it for her. Not being a soothsayer, he has no way of knowing that the 'Great Depression' is just around the corner and that he is destined to lose his job.
The financial difficulties created by the coming crisis tests the young couple, and everyone else who comes into their circle. Honora seems to collect friends just as easily as she does sea glass from the beach, and the story of this trying time is told not just from Honora's perspective, but also from that of her friends. Her friends range from McDermott, a gruff mill worker to the socialite Vivian. The contrast between the friends she accumulates helps to tell Honora's story with more depth and passion than could ever have been done if Shreve had chosen to have Honora tell her story alone.
This is a great book that is especially well suited to take with you as 'beach' reading. Just be sure that you'll have plenty of free-time handy so that you can finish the book straight away, for once you get into the story, you're not going to want to put it away until you find out what happened to Honora and Sexton and the effect that their 'problems' have upon them, individually and as a couple.
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