Grace Keane discerns in Deirdre Eustace's latest novel an emotional tale with some drastic twists and turns concerning love, loss and self-discovery.
Alison is a beautiful young widow, and mother to one, who is left struggling and facing increasing difficulties following the death of her fisherman husband at sea three years previously. Since that fretful night when experienced fisherman Sean risked taking to sea amidst a raging storm, nothing has been the same. Life, finances and Alison’s relationships are all suffering; her zest and vigour for life has ebbed away like the tide with each passing day since his disappearance. That is however, until she meets the enchanting nomad and artist William.
Set in the small village of Carniskey in County Mayo in the West of Ireland, Alison enjoys the beauty of her surroundings. At times, however, she must contend with the cruelty and small-mindedness of villagers in her adoptive rural community. Hungry for gossip, the community are quick to judge William and speculate upon his relationship with Alison. Once an outsider herself, Alison is quickly reminded of the sacrifices she made in her youth to be with Sean. There were ambitions dispensed with and writing opportunities she forsook to raise a family with him and become a part of his community in Carniskey.
On top of her already growing financial difficulties, family life is strenuous and Alison can find little solace in it. With a deteriorating mother-in-law living in a care home and a difficult teenage daughter growing more distant every day, it seems her only source of comfort and relief is that of her best friend Kathleen, who harbours her own dark secrets.
Throughout Alison’s three long years of grief, Kathleen and the wild beauty of the sea are the things that keep her grounded and in touch with reality. Nonetheless, it is not until Williams’s arrival that Alison is given that final push to look inward and become grounded within herself. With William’s help, Alison begins to understand her grief, her desires, resilient strength to endure - and an ability to love once more.
Well written and located within a beautiful part of Ireland, Eustace's story is emotive with some drastic twists and turns. Likewise, her protagonist is a very real and accessible character - she is not without insecurities and regrets. Finding Alison ultimately asks the following question: how much of your own life should you spend honouring one already spent? When does mourning stop being a mark of respect to the dead and become disrespect to yourself?
Despite these attributes, however, the pace of the novel is rather slow and drawn out, and didn’t really grip me. Amidst all this growth and personal development, the reader is exposed to more than one clichéd emotional declaration. Most frustratingly however, various shocking plot threads emerge during the story which refuse to culminate in the explosive climaxes that they appear to lead to.
Instead they are quietly addressed and side-tracked, which left the ending flat and the reader feeling rather cheated. At just shy of 400 pages, it is a rather big commitment to ask of the reader and then to not really deliver on.
