Coastliners: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author) "I returned after ten years' absence, on a hot day in late August, on the eve of summer's first bad tides..." (more)
Key Phrases: box jellyfish, beach huts, sisters nodded, Les Salants, Les Immortelles, Soeur Extase (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After three novels which centered around gastronomic pleasures, Joanne Harris's Coastliners focuses on more astringent joys. Sea, gritty sand, and adverse weather conditions replace Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, and Five Quarters of the Orange. Set on a small, blustery fishing island off the coast of France, it tells the story of Mado, a young woman who returns to her childhood home to find the local community torn apart by family feuds, bad tides, and murky political machinations.

Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose "head is full of rocks," tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. The villagers, written with endearing panache by Harris, are an eccentric, curmudgeonly bunch, who eventually cooperate with the help of Flynn, a charismatic stranger with a shady past. He's not the only man of mystery in Mado's life; her father, taciturn Grosjean, has a secretive heart that's as "prickly and tightly layered as an artichoke," and local, wealthy businessman Brismand also seems to be hiding something. Mado does her best to unravel these mysteries, while attempting to keep a hold on her own sense of self in the claustrophobic, close community. It's not only the shore line that takes a buffeting. The villagers and the island are so vividly described that it's impossible not to become engrossed in Mado's story. Coastliners is a book about longing to belong, and Joanne Harris charts that emotional voyage compellingly. --Eithne Farry, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Family history meets village rivalry in Harris's poignant fourth novel, an understated passion play set on the provincial French island of Le Devin. Madeleine Prasteau leaves her Paris apartment to return to the island village of Les Salants, where she discovers that her father, a widowed boat owner, is going downhill along with the village itself as the rival town of La HoussiniŠre grows and prospers. Despite her father's chilly greeting, Madeleine spruces up the family home, and when she meets an attractive, mysterious stranger named Flynn she gets involved in a project to save Les Salants by building a homemade reef to restore the fast-eroding beach. The project gets complicated when Madeleine realizes that Flynn has ties to Brismand, a rival of her father's, who controls local commerce in La HoussiniŠre. The reef project succeeds, but with a bitter aftertaste when Madeleine's older sister, Adrienne, moves back to the island and her father becomes infatuated with Adrienne's children. Sibling rivalry fades to the background when Madeleine learns that Flynn's ties to Brismand extend into her own family history, and she discovers that Flynn was an integral part of a romantic triangle involving her father and Brismand. Harris develops her beguiling story in layers, drawing Madeleine into the village life she loves and loathes while exploring the nuances of island living. Despite the narrowly focused setting, Harris exposes a wide range of passions and emotions as Madeline gets involved with Flynn against the effective backdrop of the various family and village rivalries. This book lacks the lurid erotic power of Chocolat, but Harris compensates for the lowered levels of passion and eros by writing with power and grace about the family ties that bind.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (August 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060958014
• ISBN-13: 978-0060958015
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #228,728 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I Really Wanted to Like this Book !, September 6, 2002

By	BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Coastliners: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is the fourth novel of Joanne Harris's that I have read. I started with "Chocolate", which I loved, and read them in order as they were published. I have become more disappointed with each successive book, and "Coastliners" was the worst.

This time, Harris did not use food as a theme, but rather used the imagery of the unpredictable nature of the sea and its effect on a fragile coast. I thought that with this change, and my own love of the sea, perhaps this book would be better than her last two, but it wasn't. Instead, I found a novel cluttered with characters who are wooden, cliched, and undeveloped --and too numerous to keep track of, as well as a rambling, formulaic, and ridiculous story.

These characters include Mado, the beautiful returning exile; Cappuchine, a tart with a heart of gold; Brismand, rich and evil; Flynn, the mysterious, enigmatic drifter; and GrosJean, Mado's reclusive father with a tragic past. By page 50, I had resorted to writing down the names of the characters and descriptions so I could keep all of them straight in my mind!

Mado Prasteau returns to her tiny Breton island home of LeDevin from Paris after the death of her mother. She has been gone for ten years and the two villages on this island are still feuding. La Houssiniere is prosperous due to its beach and businesses, including tourism. At the other end of the island, where Mado's father lives, the impoverished and dying village of Les Salantes has an eroding coast and a bunch of dilapidated fishermen's shacks. The populace apparently has given up and is totally apathetic.

This is the fourth time Harris has had an outsider appear in a backwater area ready to stir things up and/or improve conditions in the area. Personally, this plot device has gotten really old, as is her theme of "good versus evil". The heavy writing is bad enough, but the predictable and cloying romantic storyline is worse.

Something that I found incredibly annoying was the author's constant insertion of French words. It made the flow, what there was of it, even more awkward than it already was.

I really wish I could find something positive to say, and wonder why I am even giving this 2 stars. I kept hoping to find something redeeming that I could say in this review....well, it does have lovely cover art.

I am sure Joanne Harris fans will read the book no matter what I or any other reviewer says - she has a huge fan base and I understand the film rights have already been sold.

The most relevant comment I have seen about this book was : "Coastliners" feels like "Chocolat" without the chocolate ...which is just about nothing. I would have to agree.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling book with unexpected twists and turns, October 28, 2002

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coastliners: A Novel (Hardcover)

You can almost feel the sand between your toes as you read COASTLINERS. And yet this new novel from Joanne Harris, award-winning author of CHOCOLAT, is far from a typical beach read. Set on a small French island, the story revolves around a handful of families that dictate every aspect of life there with the notable exception of the tides. And, as they soon discover, even that power may be within their reach.

COASTLINERS is a potpourri of mystery, romance, and suspense. Readers follow in the footsteps of Madeleine or "Mado," a young woman who returns to her island home to a silent father and a community that is quickly slipping into the sea. An artist whose subject matter has always been the island, Mado returns to Les Salants from Paris seeking a sense of home, of family, of belonging.

Once again exploring the inner-workings of community, of who fits in and why, Harris deftly imparts deep-rooted feelings of loss with those of revenge to the inhabitants of Les Salants, a town where historical feuds fester and faith in a Saint overrides a sense of independent action.

Though readers may stumble on similar sounding names of an ever-expanding cast of characters, the compelling plot --- complete with unexpected twists and turns --- makes the story well worth the read. The power of charm in its seediest of contexts, the destructive effects of misdirected love, and the manipulative power of human nature work to pull at and repair the tiny island community of Les Salants. At the story's end, characters emerge with a renewed sense of direction and readers feel as though they've taken a dip into the deep end of a French island pool. Harris treats readers to descriptions of Les Salants and its residents that seem almost tangible. You can see the glittery pieces of sand as they build on the beach and taste the salt from the sea.

Harris strikes gold in this new novel, which catapults readers into the disheveled lives of one family that exists on an island of its very own. Carrying the expectations of a deceased mother and the guilt of leaving her forlorn father on Les Salants, Mado struggles to strike a balance between independence and familial reconciliation. Readers of CHOCOLAT may recognize familiar themes of self-discovery and shedding veils of the past in COASTLINERS. Yet unlike the dark element to CHOCOLAT, COASTLINERS imparts a sense of possibility in its 344 pages and leaves readers with a desire to know more about the about the fate of the Salannaise.

--- Reviewed by Heather Grimshaw

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth Its Weight in Sel de Mer, May 3, 2004

By	Diana F. Von Behren "reneofc" (Kenner, LA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Coastliners : A Novel (Hardcover)

Joanne Harris has a wonderful way of creating a novel that revolves around something magical where the main character, although faced with some implacable obstacle, doesn't lose faith and in the process of solving the story's main plot issue, reintroduces him/herself to the new person that has immerged from within. "Coastliners" is just such a story. Mado, has returned to the northern French island of Le Devin whose livelihood relies on the bounty of the island saint who controls the tides and the erosion of the island's beaches. Upset by the dissentigration of Les Salants, her hometown, she devises a way to bring the heart back into the village, by stealing the beach back from the rival village on the other side of the island. With the help of an Anglo drifter, she finds a way to unite the feuding families of her home and infuse them and herself with a faith in the future.

Harris' strong suit is her wonderfully fleshed-out characterizations of the island inhabitants. The Greek chorus of the two nuns, the oldest woman in the community, the old man with the wooden leg as well as Mado's father, Grosjean and the rival merchant Claude Brissmand are all worth their weight in sel de mer. Her weak point however, is her tendency to get a bit preachy still in Mado's voice towards the end of the novel when this character begins to think of herself as a part of the village and not just an instrument of change---the John Dunne quote of "no man is an island" rings a little shrilly here, the bell tolling allusion even used within the story to signal the villagers to connect in action.

If you are a fan of Harris' other novels, you will also recognize a pattern, the protagonist always has a wicked and prosperous adversary, the secondary players squabble like children until the narrator finds a way to use their diversity to create an infallable unit, the love interest has questionable motives and a penchant for bending the law to his advantage---in 'Coastliners' all this works wonderfully well as it did in "Chocolat" and "Five Quarters of the Orange". Also at the conclusion, the islanders face too much strife which detracts from the ebb and flow of the main story. The author's motivation to show too much cooperation during these misfortunes admirably shows the development towards that greater village good, but it goes on too long---one disaster scene would have played just as well. In addition, the focal point of many unknown secrets seems to be given a rather rushed denoument also towards the end of the story--whereas, hints of these hidden motivations, although suggested rather slighly, should have been advertisized a bit more blatantly with more of a sprinkling throughout the entire story.

In spite of these flaws at the novel's end, 'Coastliners' is still a marvelous story in which to get lost. Harris has a way with words, her descriptions take you to the coast where the surf rushes around your ankles and draws you in deep. Listen to the unabridged audio version; the reader does a great job of adding vibrance to each villager's voice.