Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God [Paperback]

Joe Coomer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 1997

Nine weeks after losing her husband, Charlotte escapes to a wooden motor yacht in New Hampshire, where her shipmates are an aging blue-haired widow, an emotional seventeen-year-old, and the ugliest dog in literature. A genuine bond develops among the three women, as their distinct personalities and paths cross and converge against the backdrop of emotional secrets, abuse, and the wages of old age.

Off the boat, Charlotte, an archaeologist, joins a local excavation to uncover an ancient graveyard. Here she can indulge her passion for reconstructing the past, even as she tries to bury her own recent history. She comes to realize, however, that the currents of time are as fluid and persistent as the water that drifts beneath her comforting new home.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite its sparkling humor and madcap moments, this introspective, lyrical work is quite a change of pace from the raucous absurdities of The Loop, Coomer's last novel. But, however different the tone, the dominant theme is still the need to make sense of the past through found artifacts and recovered memories. In The Loop, the protagonist searched for his lost antecedents among highway wreckage and in the memories of his parrot's former owners. Here, narrator Charlotte, an archeologist, digs up 300-year-old Colonial garbage in Portsmouth, N.H., to unlock the secrets of the past while vainly trying to escape the detritus of her own life. At the same time, Grace, her septuagenarian landlady/boatmate aboard the yacht on which Charlotte rents living space, loses her own history through a stroke. It becomes up to Charlotte and her pregnant cabinmate, Chloe, to take Grace literally on a journey through the ocean of memory to regain her true self. Although she exhibits far more interest in things mechanical than most women, Charlotte's voice is convincing. So is that of Grace, who "was old, forgetful and blue-headed, but she could still stick a pin through you as if you were a bug." But Chloe, though well-drawn, is unnaturally wise and well-spoken for a 17-year-old lobsterman's daughter. That minor bobble aside, Coomer meticulously evokes the sights, sounds and flavors of New England and the north Atlantic coast in prose that at its best courses with the sonorous majesty of the tides.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Trained as an archaeologist, Charlotte sifts through the debris of the past to discover truths for the present. Recently widowed, she flees Kentucky to escape her possessive in-laws. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, she takes up residence (on a boat aptly named after Don Quixote's horse) with two other beleaguered but spunky women; her landlady is a trompe l'oeil artist with a tenuous hold on reality, and her cabin mate is an overweight adolescent with an abusive boyfriend. Together these three laugh, cry, and battle injustices. Reminiscent of Annie Proulx's The Shipping News (LJ 2/15/93), this story of personal regeneration amidst wise eccentrics is quirky but engaging. The actions of Charlotte's in-laws are sometimes extreme, but Coomer's forceful narrative makes them plausible. From the author of Dream House (LJ 3/1/92); recommended for most collections.?Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (May 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068482440X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684824406
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #582,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars three women, one boat, September 3, 2005

By 

S. C. Watson (WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God (Paperback)

If someone had handed me this book and said, it's about three women, each representing a different generation, and they come together to make a nice little family, I would have rolled my eyes. How sitcom. Fortunately, it's a lovely piece of writing and while three women of different backgrounds come to appreciate each other and eventually live together, it's not forced saccharine or knee-jerk comedy.

Each character is vulnerable in a believable way. Charlotte has recently lost her husband, who died after admitting he was ambivalent about their marriage. She tries to keep it together and escape the questions of her in-laws by involving herself in what might be a pointless archeological dig in a small eastcoast town. There she meets artist, Grace, an older woman, followed by Chloe, a young but wise pregnant teenager. Coomer keeps things from getting maudlin by avoiding tidy relationships. The characters don't instantly see each other as salvation and there are always tics to contend with. Charlotte's pain felt very real. Admittedly, Chloe was a bit overly wise, but with the Coomer's touch, it's easy to overlook.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars no title, December 23, 2005

By 

C. L Wilson (Elmhurst, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God (Paperback)

Best book I've read since "The Island of the Mighty" and "The Stone Diaries". One of the best books I've read in current fiction (1995). One of those books I don't want to finish. Like good food. So much about memory - how it makes a person. I love the analogy between an archaelogical artifact and a piece of our past, suddenly arising in our brain. Coomer brought all sorts of knowledge in to this book - Portsmouth, N. H., water and boats, archaeology. He has done this. Some of his phraseology is breathtaking. And the secrets two women held onto til the end - Wow! An absorbing story with convincing characters. It was a Great Read. Three women - 75, 28, and 17. And most of the time Chloe at 17 is the wisest. A great movie here with the right actresses. Why hasn't it been done?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm in love with this book., July 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God (Paperback)

Since my bookstore's 'must reads' have never let me down before, I started this novel with little knowledge about the subject or the author. I was two-thirds finished before I realized that the author of this emotionally clear, touching, heart-felt novel was written by a man. I was shocked! It's the same jolt I felt after reading Roddy Doyle's "The Woman Who Walked into Doors" and sat for hours, not believing this man could know so much about what it is to be a woman. Some female must have been whispering into his ear at the typewriter, I mused.

"Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God" is a slice of heaven. This is a spiritual, mystical story that takes less than a year chronologically, and although the actual time is short, you walk away feeling you've been friends with these incredible women for years - watching them learn to embrace life. It's an amazing journey.