Sea Glass [Paperback]

Anita Shreve (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2002

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 at a nearby 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From its opening pages, Anita Shreve's Sea Glass surrounds the reader in the surprisingly rich feeling of the New Hampshire coast in winter. Vividly evoking the life of the coastal community at the beginning of the Great Depression, Sea Glass shifts through the multiple points of view of six principal characters; it's a skillfully created story of braided lives that bounces easily (even inevitably) from character to character. We learn how these lives come together following the stock market crash of 1929 and about the struggles of mill workers on the starkly beautiful New Hampshire coast during the following year. At the novel's center is the story of Honora Beecher, a young newlywed who compulsively collects sea glass along the beach as she collects unexpected friendship in her new beachside community, and Francis, a boy who discovers a father figure in the towering character of McDermott, an Irish mill worker, at a time when he most needs direction. Each character finds unexpected new purpose beyond the struggle to survive during that turbulent year among the dunes. First their lives barely touch, then they intersect, and finally they become inextricably bound. By the powerful and unexpected final scenes of the story, every point of view, every brilliant shard of life depends deeply on all the others. It is a very satisfying read--confidently told and deeply felt--with as many subtle colors and reflections as the sea glass that permeates the narrative. --Paul Ford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In addition to spinning one of her most absorbing narratives, Shreve here rewards readers with the third volume in a trilogy set in the large house on the New Hampshire coast that figured in The Pilot's Wife and Fortune's Rocks. This time the inhabitants are a newly married couple, Sexton and Honora Beecher, both of humble origins, who rent the now derelict house. In a burst of overconfidence, slick typewriter salesman Sexton lies about his finances and arranges a loan to buy the property. When the 1929 stock market crash occurs soon afterward, Sexton loses his job and finds menial work in the nearby mills. There, he joins a group of desperate mill hands who have endured draconian working conditions for years, and now, facing extortionate production quotas and reduced pay, want to form a union. The lives of the Beechers become entwined with the strikers, particularly a principled 20-year-old loom fixer named McDermott and Francis, the 11-year-old fatherless boy he takes under his wing. A fifth major character is spoiled, dissolute socialite Vivian Burton, who is transformed by her friendship with Honora. As Honora becomes aware that Sexton is untrustworthy, she is drawn to McDermott, who tries to hide his love for her. The plot moves forward via kaleidoscopic vignettes from each character's point of view, building emotional tension until the violent, rather melodramatic climax when the mill owners' minions confront the strikers. Shreve is skilled at interpolating historical background, and her descriptions of the different social strata the millworkers, the lower-middle-class Sextons, the idle rich enhance a touching story about loyalty and betrayal, responsibility and dishonor. This is one of Shreve's best, likely to win her a wider audience. 6-city author tour. (Apr. 9) Forecast: Expectations of brisk sales, indicated by the one-day laydown, will likely be achieved. Readers should find timely resonance in the setting of 1920s economic turbulence.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Abacus (November 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0349115176
• ISBN-13: 978-0349115177
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 7.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (143 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,582,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts (just outside Boston), the eldest of three daughters. Early literary influences include having read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton when she was a junior in high school (a short novel she still claims as one of her favorites) and everything Eugene O'Neill ever wrote while she was a senior (to which she attributes a somewhat dark streak in her own work). After graduating from Tufts University, she taught high school for a number of years in and around Boston. In the middle of her last year, she quit (something that, as a parent, she finds appalling now) to start writing. "I had this panicky sensation that it was now or never."

Joking that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejections from magazines for her short stories ("I really could have," she says), she published her early work in literary journals. One of these stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," won an O. Henry prize. Despite this accolade, she quickly learned that one couldn't make a living writing short fiction. Switching to journalism, Shreve traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, where she lived for three years, working as a journalist for an African magazine. One of her novels, The Last Time They Met, contains bits and pieces from her time in Africa.

Returning to the United States, Shreve was a writer and editor for a number of magazines in New York. Later, when she began her family, she turned to freelancing, publishing in the New York Times Magazine, New York magazine and dozens of others. In 1989, she published her first novel, Eden Close. Since then she has written 14 other novels, among them The Weight of Water, The Pilot's Wife, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December, Body Surfing, Testimony,and A Change in Altitude.

In 1998, Shreve received the PEN/L. L. Winship Award and the New England Book Award for fiction. In 1999, she received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey, and The Pilot's Wife became the 25th selection of Oprah's Book Club and an international bestseller. In April 2002, CBS aired the film version of The Pilot's Wife, starring Christine Lahti, and in fall 2002, The Weight of Water, starring Elizabeth Hurley and Sean Penn, was released in movie theaters.

Still in love with the novel form, Shreve writes only in that genre. "The best analogy I can give to describe writing for me is daydreaming," she says. "A certain amount of craft is brought to bear, but the experience feels very dreamlike."

Shreve is married to a man she met when she was 13. She has two children and three stepchildren, and in the last eight years has made tuition payments to seven colleges and universities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good, April 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Sea Glass: A Novel (Hardcover)

Anita Shreve's latest book, "Sea Glass," is a quiet novel that deals with the universal themes of life, love, loss, hope, beauty, tragedy and death.

"Sea Glass" begins in 1929, when Sexton Beecher, a typewriter salesman, marries bank clerk, Honora. They decide to make their home in a rather dalipidated, but still romantic, New England beach house. Honora is a fulltime wife and homemaker and besides the usual things all wives and homemakers do, Honora loves to take long walks on the beach and collect bits of colored glass worn smooth as silk by the waves of the sea. Eventually, Honora meets and becomes friends with Vivian, a wealthy woman who happens to live nearby. The world seems, at least to Honora, to be an almost perfect place.

When things are too good, they usually don't last and Honora learns this lesson the hard way. The Great Depression causes problems for Sexton and Honora, but it brings Honora unexpected pleasures as well, in the form of handsome Quillen McDermott and his twelve year old friend, Francis.

This is a book that is told from the point of view of many of the characters involved. In almost every case this works, and it works well. The exceptions are Vivian and Francis. In the early sections of the book, Vivian plays such a prominent part that we come to believe she will be an integral part of the coming storyline as well. Instead, she seems to fade a little more with each passing scene.

Francis is also problematic. His chapters are written in long sentences that let us know he is smart, but lacks the education he should have at his age. This wouldn't be bad in and of itself. The problem arises because the rest of the novel is so quiet and so poetic; Francis' chapters seem a little abrupt, as if they're jarring us out of a lovely reverie that we just don't want to leave.

Shreve is good, at least in this book, at creating convincing, believable characters and then making them come to life. The tension and excitement that exists between Honora and McDermott is especially memorable.

Although the description is good, the symbolism of the sea glass, however, is a bit heavy-handed, especially near the end.

This is a quiet book, with no great surprises and no great suspense. It doesn't delve too deeply into the minds and hearts of the characters involved, but then, we don't always want something that's earthshaking. I think most women will find more than enough to relate to in this book and Anita Shreve fans will probably love it.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fragile lives during the Depression, July 9, 2002

By 

Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" (NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sea Glass: A Novel (Hardcover)

Fortune's Rock, the setting of two of Anita Shreve's earlier books once again plays a significant role in her newest title, Sea Glass. It is to a house in the area of Fortune's Rock located in England, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and a secluded beach, that newly married Honora and Sexton move to in June of 1929. Honora looks forward to keeping house while Sexton will continue his job as traveling typewriter salesman. The house they occupy is rather run down but in lieu of rent, Sexton has agreed to fix it up for the owners. But when the house becomes available for them to buy and while they don't have all of the money, Sexton jumps at the opportunity to purchase it for their futures. Unfortunately, for this couple and other characters in the book, the stock market crash is only weeks away and will ultimately test them economically but also emotionally. In an eerily foreboding manner reminiscent of Shreve's earliest works, the author depicts the lives of characters caught up in events that will shatter their world as the book takes hold and readers race towards the climactic ending.

Told in alternating voices are a cast of wonderful character whom Shreve portrays so well that we feel as though we know them. In addition to Sexton and Honora who spends time collecting sea glass on the beach, there is also the very wealthy Vivian who meets Honora on the beach and her one time lover and once wealthy Dickie. Rounding out the characters are McDermott, a factory worker and labor organizer and his protégé 11 year old Alphonse who dreams of becoming a pilot. These are vivid characters we come to care about whose stories once set in motion, keep the reader wondering how their lives will play our and what will become of them at the end of the book.

And all the while, we are witnesses to these character's lives as they struggle with loyalty, trust, betrayal and solid marriages during a time when our country was gripped with both economic and moral dilemmas. And as we come to know more about them we fear for their lives as the climate of the country grows darker and darker.

While Honora continues to collect her beautiful sea glass, the reader marvels at how Shreve parallels her characters lives with the sea glass. How glass remains intact despite the pounding of the ocean waves and its journey to shore. But people are more fragile as Shreve reminds us in this book and we mourn for these people as the pages turn almost by themselves. While some might say that this title is a historical novel and few do research as well as Anita Shreve, it is also the portrayal of vastly different people who come together under difficult circumstances as they try to survive their own waves and pounding. Few authors can evoke a period of time and place the way Shreve can and does. Once again Ms. Shreve has written a worthwhile read and engaging title.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It Didn't Shine for Me, August 25, 2002

By 

Diane "dianemax" (Newfoundland, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sea Glass: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've read all of Anita Shreve's books. This one wasn't as good as A Pilot's Wife or The Weight of Water.

Her latest book tells the story of the stock market crash in 1929. We see the struggle of the mill workers and the impact of such a horrendous economic blow to all of the various social classes. Honora Beecher is at the centre of the story though the novel is told from 5 different perspectives.

Shreve is an outstanding writer in that she uses wonderful, descriptive language and she can explore the human condition and the range of emotions like few other authors. I enjoyed this part of the book, but the story was a little too slow. I felt that some of the characters just didn't come to life like they could have...Vivian, the jaded socialite especially.

Overall, this was a good book, just not her best.