Saltwater

Loved. Beautifully written and lovely.

“I would forever be in her orbit, moving towards her and pulling away while she quietly controlled the tides, anchoring me to something as the universe expanded further and further away from us.” - Saltwater Growing up in the north east, Lucy wanted more. When others were thinking about the Nissan factory or call centres she was thinking about Pete Doherty, poetry and the possibilities London seemed to offer. University was the way out, her ticket to the promised land – where she’d become a shinier version of herself, where her nights would be gigs and parties. But once she gets there Lucy can’t help feeling that the big city isn’t for her, and once again she is striving, only this time it’s for the right words, the right clothes, the right foods. No matter what she tries she’s not right. Until she is. In that last year of her degree the city opens up to her, she is saying the right things, doing the right things. Until her parents visit for her graduation and events show her that her life has always been about pretending and now she’s lost all sense of who she is and what she’s supposed to be doing. And so Lucy packs up her things and leaves again, this time for her dead Irish grandfather’s stone cottage in a remote part of Donegal. There, she sets about piecing together her history hoping that in confronting where she came from she will know where she should be going. Sometimes you just read a book that reaches out to you through the pages and speaks to you, “Saltwater” definitely did that to me. This book follows Lucy throughout her whole life and examines her memories, relationships (especially with her mother), and feelings. The story is told through many numbered vignettes that each relay a memory or a specific period of her life. The book goes back and forth between the past and present to make these connections and fill out the overall story. The book is definitely character-driven and Lucy is such an introspective character. Also, I really related to this book. From what I could tell, Lucy and I are about the same age so the pop-culture and other references in the novel were spot on for me. The author also has a brilliant way of writing and really highlights the aimless periods of life that we can go through. I am hoping Jessica Andrews will write more because I loved this book so much!

Scattered throughout the book are 15 pages of first-class writing. Much of the rest is "stream of consciousness" which I skimmed.

”It begins with our bodies. Skin on skin. My body burst from yours. Safe together in the violet dark and yet already there are spaces beginning to open between us.” <.b> ”For now our secrets are only ours. You press me to your chest and I am you and I am not you and we will not always belong to each other but for now it is us and here it is quiet. I rise and fall with your breath in this bed. We are safe in the pink together.” This is a promising coming-of-age debut novel set partially in England, and partially in Donegal, Ireland. This is an author I know I will read again for her ability to pull me into her world, her story unflinchingly real, occasionally dark, heartrending, raw and honest, but oh-so lovely overall. Shared in what feels like a memoir-ish style, we follow her as she shares her memory of people and events that have shaped her life, the focus at the heart of this is on the bond between mothers and daughters. Friends, neighbors and family. Her mother, a mostly absent father, and a younger brother who was born profoundly deaf, which led to some life-changing moments for them all. A grandfather’s death that leaves her with a haunting memory. A grandmother that brings light and love to her life, she reminisces in her writing that ”Everything about her was silver; her voice as she sang along to the radio in the morning, the shiny fish scales caught on her tabard at the end of the day and the hole that she left in our lives when she died, edged like a fifty-pence piece.” There are no long chapters in this book, rather this is told in brief snippets, fragments of thoughts at times, other times longer thoughts, as these are years of change for her, of determining which path she wants to follow. It wanders back and forth through time, from childhood on, the memories of a childhood in one place haunting her, and those memories against the life she has built in this new home. Her heart eternally divided between these two places. Elements of this that reminded me of the writing of Sara Baume, an Irish author that I love. The introspective nature, the more often than not internal dialogue that presents an almost enveloping feeling of solitude, and the simple, gorgeous prose made for a very moving, beautifully shared story about the complex nature of mothers and daughters, gathering internal strength through our memories, allowing others to see us, as well. Many thanks for the ARC provided by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

This is a beautifully written book, told from the point of view of Lucy as she grows up in Sunderland, leads a student life in London and becomes comfortable with who she is in Donegal. Jessica Andrews claims this is a work of fiction but it does seem likely that there are some elements of autobiography in the tale. The book is dedicated to the author's mother and to me the main theme of the book is the resilience of women, Lucy's mother Susie in particular. Although the book is contemporary and the teenage and student years described occur some 40+ years after my own I found the issues raised as Lucy grapples with asserting her identity to be very familiar. Gender and class are prominent markers and makers of who she is. I did find the breaking up of the text into very short numbered chapters was something of an irritant as I read, especially as these chapter breaks did not seem to have any particular logic. Overall the characters, relationships and locations are well described and believable and I would recommend this book to those who enjoy a well written story of realistic people. I received a complimentary ARC of this title from the publishers via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Saltwater What a good read. The main part of the tale centres around Lucy, her coming of age and her relationship with her mother. Her dad and her grandparents also feature prominently. The story roughly spans the late 1980s (the relationship between her parents) the nineties and into the 'naughties' (her teenage and then her university years). The book brilliantly captures the whole working class kid makes it to uni (the drives, ambitions, family expectations, awakenings, realistic coming to terms and acceptances) without ever being condescending or patronising. I remembered and recognised so many of the situations and feelings expressed by Lucy; by the time I got to the end of the book I had highlighted countless evocative and significant sentences and paragraphs. While the author spends a significant amount of time on character emotions and thinking the tale is made concrete by constant references to the trends, fashions and music of the period to give it all some context. More than once I found myself laughing or cringing nostalgically at the events and historical details that occur in the tale. There is a good deal of nostalgia for and witty observations on life during this period without making it sound like a golden age. Though there is a great deal of nostalgic musings and poignant reminiscing the story never becomes dismissive, trite, dark or without hope. For the men reading this; if you ever want a view inside the feminine heads of your mother, sisters, wife or daughters then this book would be a good place to look - though maybe not just before your teenage daughter heads off for her first year at Uni!

I found this book enjoyable in a rather disjointed way. The writing jumps around all over the place but after a while I began to enjoy the style. The descriptions of Donegal drew me in, and her struggles to adapt to the dramatic contrast of her youth in Sunderland to upperclass university life in London were fascinating. Well worth a read.

'When Lucy wins a place at university she thinks London will unlock her future' the blurb in the just jacket goes yet it's only on page 200 that the narrative or rather, the snapshots as they're told by Lucy begins to feature any mention of her university experience. Before then the vignettes flicker back and forth between what appears to be risky social behaviour as a school student and her retreat to her grandfather's rundown cottage in Donegal. The problem for me throughout the book is that I didn't feel much empathy for Lucy despite her intermittently absent father's alcoholism. I never got a sense that she was really struggling to overcome this. She somehow manages to spend the bulk of her school years partying and getting drunk then amazingly, buckles down in her last year and is apparently so brilliant that she gets into a London university. Then at university, she has trouble focusing on her coursework, being too distracted by the endless London distractions whilst at the same time being unprepared for how 'posh' everyone else is. I just found this perspective too cliche and on the trite side i.e. everyone at university is posh and anybody working class doesn't fit. While that may be the experience of a lot of people, this novel doesn't do anything beyond offer up some very cliche perspectives.

Really enjoyed this book.

I found it quite difficult to get into at the start but I kept going with it and eventually I couldn't put it down. The way Jessica writes is beautiful and inspiring. Really great book.