Sea Wife

If youre looking for lush, impeccable details on how to sail the scenic route to Panama and Columbia, Sea Wife is your book. Gaiges lambent command of the research for her fourth novel is nautical genius. But, if you want to take an engaging, sometimes confrontational journey into your own points of view about intimate relationship, Sea Wife must be your manual.

Midway through her novel, Gaige writes, the sea draws the inner life out. Immersed in her seascape, yours will be laid bare. Gaige urges you to visceral participation in Juliet and Michaels struggle. The wife and husband battle each other and the sea to master their 44-foot yacht, a metaphor for the couples beautifully human relationship.

I really did not like the 2 main narrators of this unpleasant novel. They are entitled and whiny. I found their lengthy internal monologues insufferable. I did not care about their moments of love, frustration, anger, or despair. And the short sections of the book narrated by the daughter are completely ridiculous – I think this girl’s inner monologue is the author’s voice, not a child’s voice.
When I read a description of the plot/structure of this novel, it sounded great. The concept is good. The writing is lucid and clean. Some of the descriptions of sailing and nature are beautiful. I just would have preferred different shipmates.

Sea Wife is a beautiful written novel and I’m thrilled to learn the author has several other books out. They’ve gone straight to the top of my reading list. Her voice and narrative power are that good. She captures emotions and interactions between her characters with a grace and beauty of language that seems to me both rare and distinct. Two elements set this novel apart for me, beyond the quality of her prose. First is her ability to toggle back and forth between her two main characters, husband and wife, and create completely distinct and consistent voices and emotions for each. Second is that she’s constructed an “adventure” story to drive the narrative, and even though the reader knows something has gone wrong very early in the novel, there’s continuing suspense about the what, how and why to drive this unusual story of a marriage of two strong-willed people who love each other deeply but who cannot always escape damage from their pasts. Even knowing nothing about sailing (or having any interest in it), this aspect of the novel enriched the story and served as a powerful metaphor for the interplay between husband and wife and their two children. My one quibble, if you can even call it that, is the final “chapter.” It’s a bit of a blend of very disparate elements, some of which could be spoilers, which I assume is intended to shed further light on the story, but actually did the opposite for me. I wanted to immediately call the author and ask her intentions, so I guess in one sense she still “had” me as a reader, but not with the same intensity and admiration as I felt throughout the rest of the novel. That aside, this is a first-rate novel and I suspect could make a really interesting film or mini-series, too.

This is an amazing novel, written in two voices, that of the husband who thinks taking a year to sail–and by, the way, it is not around the world but only a piece of the Gulf of Mexico–would be good for him, for his depressed wife, and their two young children. I don’t know anything about sailing. But Amity Gaige either does from experience or from doing a lot of research. The husband, Michael, keeps a log while his wife, Juliet (the boat is named after her), writes in first person. From the beginning the reader is aware that the marriage is “at sea.” A rough sea. And that undoubtedly this year spent sailing from Panama around and up to Jamaica is not going to do much to make anything better. I love the two children in this novel. And I like the parents as well. They are so real, so authentic. And if you are looking for action, I assure you, there is plenty of it. You can’t go wrong with this novel–at least I certainly have enjoyed it and will, I suspect, re-read it sometime.

I am not a sailor and have probably only been on a boat a half a dozen times in my life, but that doesn’t prevent me from loving this book. A fascinating story of marriage, childhood, relationships of many kinds, not to mention adventure.

This book captured me, and I will be passing it along to my son and his wife who I hope might enjoy it as much as I did.

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