Customer Reviews

Sea Change: A Novel

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In one moment of tragedy, a man's life is forever altered, the perfect future with wife and child vanishing into the realm of memory. Five years later, Guy is adrift in the world and on the North Sea in a ninety-foot Dutch coastal barge, hoping to find in this new wilderness that which has eluded him on land. In fragments of past, present, and the imagining of a future undamaged by the randomness of fate, Page strips to the marrow a man yearning for continuity between past and present, from the fens of East Anglia to the landscape of America's rural south to the drift of the North Sea and the uncharted depths of an emotional abyss. From the morning of the freak accident that shatters his life with wife, Judy, and daughter, Freya, Guy finds temporary solace in his barge's isolated cabin, each night diligently melding past and what might have been.

Hope arrives unexpectedly, as it usually does, in the form of another vessel and its occupants, an opportunity for Guy to reach beyond the stasis of his emotions and embrace another reality than his current fractured existence. Between the three elements of the novel, the accident, the drifting present and the nightly diaries, Page creates a seamless narrative where truth changes shape and intention, where Guy discovers a link between his most cherished child and the world around him. Anything is possible in the netherworld Guy inhabits, even the lessening of pain and the joy of reunion. That Page plumbs such emotional depth without a touch of the maudlin makes this story a moving and thought-provoking experience. Luan Gaines/2010.

This sad story is a character study of a man suffering depression over the loss of his 5-year-old daughter in a tragic accident and the way he has dealt with it for the five years since. To maintain his sanity, he has kept a false diary of daily life with his wife and daughter as if the daughter had never died and his wife had never left him soon after. His life is a disaster since then so the fake diary entries he writes every night are all he has to not want to end his own life.

The ending of the book is totally enigmatic except for the fact that he apparently works out his depression over his daughter's death, but may have developed depression over some other lost love or possible life possibility. His fantasy world begins to come together with his real life and a new world emerges with the meeting of a woman a decade older and her daughter a decade younger. What becomes of his real life is, as I said, enigmatic. Is there some meaning to the new direction in his later writings? Was he killed by wild animals, which would relate to his daughter's fate? Did he assume a new identity and form a new life? Did he commit suicide? I hope someone will answer these questions and a light bulb will turn on in my head because I'm definitely missing cohesion in the story line after reading this dreary tale that so intriguingly seemed to otherwise be building to something special.

I felt very noble when I decided to read Sea Change by Jeremy Page. It was clear even from the summary, that this was a reflective, intelligent book. There are times when I enjoy reading books like that. This isn't really one of them. I want to be entertained. However, I decided to give it a fair shot.

The book is extraordinary. I don't think I have it in me to explain how Mr. Page can illuminate both the beauty and pain of a single moment. I was captivated from the beginning, held in suspense by his deceptively leisurely narration.
In 2010, shortly after the book was released, Washington Post staff writer Ron Charles wrote, "As introspective and painful as "Sea Change" is, it remains engaging and even surprising all the way to the end. Page knows enough about real grief to be aware follows no regular stages."

I take issue only with one thing that Mr. Charles said. "This is a difficult book to recommend - a voyage into dark waters all of us want to avoid - but if something about the description resonates with you, seek it out; it won't lead you astray."
It's true that the subject matter is painful, but the story is so beautiful, the main character's grief so authentic, I can't help but recommend it. It's not light reading, and I hate endings that leave major questions unanswered, but the story will stay with me. In my estimation, that earns it highest praise.

Some pieces of literature are art in its highest form. "Sea Change" by Jeremy Page is one of those books. He paints with words instead of merely constructing a narrative. His writing style is lyrical. He transports the reader into a world fully realized and created on the page.

Things begin in a surreal fashion. Guy and Judy are enjoying a carefree day in a secluded field with their preschool-age daughter, Freya. Page opens with the beautiful image of the young girl capturing a small bead of rainwater from a leaf. The peaceful moment is broken when out of nowhere, a wild stallion appears. He charges the unsuspecting couple killing Freya.

The setting shifts to five years after the accident. Divorced from Judy, Guy is living alone on a houseboat incessantly writing in a diary about what the couple's life would have been like if Freya had lived. He vividly imagines an alternative existence for the three of them. With maps filling the cabin, he envisions a family road trip across the southern United States. While fashioning this parallel world, ugly truths begin to emerge from his inner consciousness as he struggles to maintain a sense of what is real and what is not.

Stopping at a coastal pub where he once shared a poignant moment with Judy, Guy encounters Marta and her daughter, Rhona. Marta is a recent widow trying to come to terms with her husband's passing. Rhona, a wild child now in her twenties, expresses her grief through sexual provocation and suicide attempts. Despite the drama they bring to his solitary existence, Guy begins to feel an intimate connection to them. His feelings for Rhona are complicated. At times, he feels nothing but lust, or he looks at her like the daughter he once had who never had the chance to grow up. On the other hand, he looks at Marta as a kindred spirit who possesses the innate ability to truly understand him.

Throughout the book, nature is framed as a powerful adversary. In a foolhardy frame of mind, Guy heads straight into the storm clouds of the treacherous North Sea. As he struggles to stay alive, he has a ghostly visitation from Freya. Throughout the novel he is desperate to get back to her, but he comes to realize she has been there the entire time. She has never left him, and never will.

The ending of "Sea Change" is quite extraordinary. Page knows what the reader wants. However, he doesn't take the easy way out with a predictable pattern. Instead, he hands the reins over to Guy. It is truly an inspired twist. One that garners a more appreciative response from the reader rather than if Page tied all of the loose ends in a neat bow. It is an open-ended conclusion, but that's what makes it more fulfilling.

Overall, the brutal power of nature pales in comparison to the tumult of one's inner life.

This is a terrific book. Yes, there were times I found Page's descriptions of the sea dull, even repetitive. However, I have never read a better evocation of a father's love for his child. One of the memorable passages: "...and then learning about her - this thing that's arrived in your life, complete with her own character. You know, seeing part of her mind emerge...."

Spoiler alert. The idea of creating a future for a life that was cut short, in the form of a diary of what never happened, was brilliant. The description of the end of a marriage, with the complete failure of empathy by the adulterer, was powerful; so was the description of Guy's love for his wife at the outset of the vacation. Page is an exceptional writer.

The death of a child is one of the biggest blows a marriage can experience. Often that blow is more than the couple can survive. This is exactly the way Guy and Judy's marriage came to an end. Their only daughter, Freya, is killed in a freak accident. Within months, their marriage is over, leaving Guy unsettled and without purpose. He buys a Dutch barge and sets off toward the North Sea. At night, he keeps a diary, not of his days on the barge, but of the life he and his family would have had were it not for Freya's death. He had no cause to consider the meaning of this self-deception until he encounters Marta and her grown daughter Rhona in the estuary near some of his best memories of his early relationship with Judy. These women come into his life with their own grief. What purpose will Guy have in their lives? What purpose will they have in his?

Guy is one depressed man. In short order he loses his beloved five year old daughter and then the wife he adored. Freya was his smile and Judy was the music of his life. I could understand how lost he was and how tempting it must have been to start writing a diary of the life he lost. He wrote to keep Freya alive some way, but even in this made up existence, the pain is never far away. The longer he keeps the journal of their trip across the United States, the more reality seeps in. I got to the point that I wanted Marta or Rhona or even a fish from the sea to follow Cher's lead from Moonstruck and tell Guy to "Snap out of it!" I wondered if he couldn't see that his compulsion to write about Freya and Judy was hurting, not helping him. Over time, it gets hard to dwell in his murky darkness.

It's difficult to spend so much time in the head of a depressed person. If it must be done, John Lee might as well be your tour guide. Last summer I spent several weeks with John Lee while reading Pillars of the Earth. I loved his narration and he made that tome move at a brisk and melodic pace. As soon as Sea Change began, I instantly felt comfortable. It was if he'd been waiting on me to have him tell me another story. I did have to look up Freya's name shortly after getting started. It sounded to me like her name was "Frayer." I knew (hoped actually) that couldn't possibly be her name. Once I looked it up, I heard it perfectly clearly. John Lee's narration was the highlight of Sea Change for me.

Reading Sea Change required a good deal of concentration and I wasn't convinced it would pay off in the end. I grew more hopeful as additional details about his actual life with Judy were brought to life and started to round everything out. It is not fun or fulfilling being or living with a depressed person. As someone who has found her own way to the "other side," I wanted him to feel something. I wanted him to come to terms with everything he'd lost instead of burying himself in his diary. I wanted to see him grow more content or angry. I was happy when he found his storm. The ending was not at all what I was expecting and it felt appropriate and worthwhile. When picking up this novel, be prepared for a journey inside the heart of a desperately lonely and heartsick man.