450 (2015 #7). Fortune's Rocks

by Anita Shreve 

After reading Anita Shreve's Sea Glass a few months back, I was interested in reading another of her books set in a certain old New Hampshire beach house (modeled after a real one).  While the house is in New Hampshire, the setting for this book is an area called Fortune's Rocks, in an unspecified New England state.  There really is a Fortune's Rocks Beach, which is near the town of Biddeford, Maine.  Interestingly, the main character in this book is named Olympia Biddeford.  This book is more historical romance than historical fiction, though.

Olympia is 15 when the book begins in 1899.  Her wealthy family has a summer home at Fortune's Rocks.  John Haskell is a 40-year-old married doctor visiting the nearby mill town of Ely Falls for the summer, volunteering his services providing medical care for the mill workers.  Olympia and John meet when he visits Olympia's father, and begin a passionate affair.

Not surprisingly, Olympia gets pregnant, has the child in her parents' home in Boston, and her father spirits the baby away while Olympia is under the effects of painkillers from the childbirth.  Her father then sends her away to school in western Massachusetts.  In the next three years, she doesn't forget about John or her baby boy, though.




She ultimately finds her way back to Fortune's Rocks, living in her family's summer home which they have abandoned.  She finds out where her child is from an old friend there.  Ultimately she goes to court to get her son back.  In her acknowledgments, Shreve says, "The court opinions cited in italics in this work of fiction are, in fact, true ones, and portions of the final judgment are taken from the court transcript of the Pennsylvania case of d'Hauteville v. Sears, Sears, and d'Hauteville, although the circumstances of that 1840 custody trial were quite different.

The trial is quite interesting and goes somewhat as one would expect a historical romance to go.  There's a bit of a surprise, though, and even more of one in the final chapter, which occurs eight years after the trial.

Olympia is a compelling character, not typical of her time, given that she feels no shame for her affair, only remorse that John's wife and children were hurt by it.

I read this as an e-book, the cover of which is pictured above and is rather nondescript.  The cover of the hardbound edition, pictured at left, features detail of 12-year-old Ruby (likely meant to represent Olympia) from the 1902 painting  by John Singer Sargent of Essie, Ruby and Ferdinand, Children of Asher Wertheimer.

© Amanda Pape - 2015

[The e-book, and a print copy for reference, were borrowed from and returned to public libraries.]

415 (2014 #43). Sea Glass

by Anita Shreve,
read by Kyra Sedgwick

Sea Glass begins in June 1929, when 20-year-old Honora Willard Beecher and her new husband, 24-year-old traveling salesman Sexton, are moving into an old dilapidated house on the New Hampshire coast just outside a mill town, fixing it up in lieu of rent.  When the house is put up for sale, Sexton finagles a way to buy it.  Then October comes, and the stock market crashes.

The reader learns more about the five main characters in chapters told from their points of view.  Honora has had a rough life, losing her father and her youngest brother in the Halifax explosion.  Sexton is an amazingly good salesman - maybe too good.  McDermott is a 20-year-old Irish immigrant working in the mills, losing his hearing from the noise, helping to support his orphaned siblings, and meeting with other men considering forming a union.  He befriends 11-year-old Francis (named Alphonse in some editions), a French immigrant also working in the mills and contributing to his family's income.  Vivian is a 28-year-old wealthy, bored, decadent socialite who comes to the coast for the summers.

In the early chapters, these people's lives start to intersect subtly, building to the chapters where they (and a few more minor characters) all come together to provide support for an upcoming strike at the mill.  There's both romance and tragedy in the story.  It was interesting to learn more about the labor movement in this period of American history, particularly as it affected the workers who went on strike, and the violence sometimes associated with it.

The title of the novel comes from the sea glass that Honora collects.  Sea glass has its sharp edges smoothed by the action of the waves and sand, and that serves as a metaphor for what happens in the book.

Actress Kyra Sedgwick does an awesome job reading this audiobook, with just that right emotion and nuances at all the right times.

I picked up this audiobook at my local public library because it was historical fiction and because it was short - I can listen to one audiobook CD a day during my commute and I had five days available before the start of my vacation.  I did not look that closely at the cover and was surprised to discover afterwards that it was an abridgment.  The abridgment (not by the author) was well done in that the novel flowed well, but it makes me wonder what I might have missed (apparently something about the house being a former convent, for one thing). I'm tempted to read the print book now!

I was also pleasantly surprised to learn, in the introduction by Anita Shreve, that this was her third book set in a certain old New England beach house (modeled after a real one), just in a different era.  I'm familiar with The Pilot's Wife, set in contemporary times, but I'm very curious to read Fortune's Rocks, set in 1899.

© Amanda Pape - 2014

[The audiobook was borrowed from and returned to my local public library.]