Product Description

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 a nearly 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1017386 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Anita Shreve's new novel Sea Glass represents a remarkable advance. She previously caught the attention of many readers with Fortune's Rocks and The Pilot's Wife, beautifully crafted novels with rich and subtly observed characterisation. But however impressive those books were, Sea Glass has the same adroit creation of character, but the prose is even more rich and allusive. This is a story of the human heart, of the demands of the past, and of the necessity for pragmatism in human relationships. It's 1929, and Honora Beecher and her husband Sexton are enjoying their new marriage in a cottage on the coast of New Hampshire. Honora is renovating the rundown property and searching for pieces of coloured glass washed up on the beach. Sexton attempts to buy the house they both adore, but with disastrous results: like many other Americans, he is a victim of the stock market crash and is financially wiped out. He is forced to work in a nearby mill, where a labour conflict is having violent results. The couple's struggle to maintain their marriage in the face of dangerous forces that threaten to overwhelm them is vividly and poignantly told.

Shreve has written nine novels and throughout her work she has painstakingly honed her storytelling skills with elegance and intelligence. She is particularly skilful at depicting interlocking lives, as in Sea Glass, and adroitly invests each with its own portion of love and tragedy. If you want to be one of the "early adopters" of Shreve's cherishable novels, now is the time:

In the wet sand by her foot, a bit of colour catches her eye. The glass is green pale and cloudy, the colour of lime juice that has been squeezed into a glass. She brushes the sand off and presses the sea glass into her palm, keeping it for luck.

Review
Set in the Depression era of the 1930s in New Hampshire, Sea Glass tells the story of Honora Beecher; quiet and unassuming, married to Sexton and mostly content. Sexton is a successful salesman and spends time away from home selling typewriters, whilst Honora keeps house and whiles away hours searching for washed up sea glass on the beach. Honora's story alternates with those of her mother - told via the letters she sends her middle class neighbour Vivian, and lower-class workers from the local textile mill, which all culminate to paint the scene for the imminent mill strike over wage cuts. Shreve has already written nine novels, including The Pilot's Wife - the biggest-selling trade paperback in America in 1999. Her appeal is apparent from her elegant style and skilful writing.

About the Author
Anita Shreve is the author of the international bestseller THE PILOT'S WIFE (a selection of Oprah's Book Club), and of 8 other novels. THE WEIGHT OF WATER was shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize. All of Anita's titles are published by Little, Brown/Abacus.

Customer Reviews

A compelling read - beautifully constructed
Anita Shreve is one of my favourite writers. She writes books that are beautifully constructed with lyrical prose that carries the reader along.

In this new novel Shreve takes the setting from two of her previous books, Fortune's Rocks and The Pilot's Wife. The period in time of this book falls betweens that of these previous two books. The story is told from the viewpoint of numerous characters which span the social classes in the town of Ely Falls.

The story centres on two characters, Honora and Sexton Beecher who are newlyweds. They move to the town of Ely Falls where they buy a house. Unfortunately events take a turn for the worse and they are financially ruined. Sexton is forced to take a job at the local mill where workers like McDermott, another character who tells the story, are setting up a union and attempting to fight for the rights of workers. It is a story that raises interesting moral issues from this period in history, child labour and the oppression of manual workers. This is juxtaposed with Vivian's story, a young society girl in a privileged position.

This is another wonderful story from a fantastic writer who never fails to maintain reader interest.

an entertaining and enjoyable read
This was the first book by Anita Shreve I've ever read. I wasn't sure what to expect; maybe something like a New England version of Maeve Binchy. (Not that Maeve Binchy is bad, mind, it's just that sometimes her novels are cloying, overly sentimental and hackneyed, and you have to be in the right mood to read them.) I was surprised, then, to find that this book was not only enjoyable and thoroughly readable, but it was also quite well-researched, and, dare I say it, literary. It's set in 1929, a short time before the huge stock market crash which plunged America and, indeed, the rest of the world, into a gut-wrenching economic depression. A young bride, Honora, makes a home in an abandoned house by the sea with her new husband, Sexton, a travelling typewriter salesman. At first things are, if not idyllic, then at least happy and reasonably comfortable. But the first flush of love soon dissipates when Sexton loses his job and takes up a lowly-paid position at a nearby woollen mill, where conditions are difficult and dangerous. When the workers retaliate by taking industrial action (unheard of at the time), Honora, provides support, shelter and food for those involved in the strike, while her marriage slowly crumbles around her. It's a simple tale but it's very well told. There's an emotional resonance which can be difficult to achieve without resorting to cliche and stereotypes, something Shreve never does. Shreve also fills her novel with rich historical detail that makes the era come alive. And her characters, which take it in turn to tell their version of the story chapter by chapter, are sharply drawn and very believable. I found myself reading this book at a very fast rate of knots, wondering what was going to happen next. If the rest of Shreve's novels are as entertaining as this one, then she had definitely won a new fan. But which of her other eight or so novels to read next . . . ?

Intelligent and emotional novel
Sea Glass is partly set in Fortune's Rocks again, and interweaves the famous house from that book and The Pilot's Wife, which adds interest for her readers. I did like this book, but not as much as the other two I mentioned. Hence, the 4 stars. I was interested in the rise of unionism, and the desire for improved working conditions and pay in the factory. However, I felt some of the lesser characters were a bit too similar.
The use of the collection of sea glass added to the atmosphere of the book, and felt like Anita Shreve territory. I do recommend it - but if it's your first Anita Shreve....then I recommend Fortune's Rocks more.