Sea Wife by Amity Gaige
Juliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her anemic dissertation when her husband, Michael, informs her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. The couple are novice sailors, but Michael persuades Juliet to say yes. With their two kids – Sybil, age seven, and George, age two, Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their forty-four-foot sailboat awaits them – a boat that Michael has christened the Juliet.
The initial result is transformative: their marriage is given a gust of energy, and even the children are affected by the beauty and wonderful vertigo of travel. The sea challenges them all – and most of all, Juliet, who suffers from postpartum depression.
Sea Wife is told in gripping dual perspectives: Juliet’s first-person narration, after the journey, as she struggles to come to terms with the dire, life-changing events that unfolded at sea; and Michael's captain’s log – that provides a riveting, slow-motion account of those same inexorable events.
Author Bio
AMITY GAIGE is the author of three novels, O My Darling, The Folded World, and Schroder, which was short-listed for the Folio Prize in 2014. Gaige is the recipient of many awards for her previous novels, including Foreword Book of the Year Award for 2007; and in 2006, she was named one of the ‘5 Under 35’ outstanding emerging writers by the National Book Foundation.
She has a Fulbright and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, The New York Times, the Literary Review, The Yale Review, and One Story.
She lives in Connecticut with her family.
“‘Sea Wife is a gripping tale of survival at sea—but that’s just the beginning. Amity Gaige also manages, before she’s done, to probe the underpinnings of romantic love, marriage, literary ambition, political inclinations in the Trump age, parenthood, and finally, the nature of survival itself in our broken world. Gaige is thrillingly talented, and her novel enchants’
Jennifer Egan”
Review
I really enjoyed this book. I’m not really a sailing person but this book is much more than a tale of a family escaping life and enjoying travelling for a year. It’s about love, depression (ante and prenatal), freedom, fun, the death of a relationship as well as being a thriller. We know the husband dies but how? Was it a wreck? Did someone kill him? Is there a murder mystery element to this book?
The writing in this story uses the unique style of mixing together the view points of the wife and the husband. The wife is writing in the present whilst the husband’s perspective come from his ships log /journal from the journey. I really liked this dual perspective as it allowed the author to drip feed us information and keep us on tenterhooks throughout the narrative. A third person jumps in towards the end but I’m not saying who!
The characterisation in this novel is just superb. The vulnerability of Juliet with her mental health is written with empathy and seems extremely well researched. I also enjoyed reading Michaels parts of the chapters and what essential constituted a mid-life crisis as well as feeling of being displaced in both society and his marriage. I loved the kids as well and the people they meet along the way.
The pacing of the book is terrific. It’s just enough information to keep you wanting to read on and then when you reach the concluding events it’s just excellent. The ending was completely different to what I was expected but I loved it. It’s made me want to jump on a yacht and sale the Mediterranean - less storms there! I thoroughly recommend this book!
