Three Salty Ladies - Three Sea Worthy Novels

Three salty sea ladies, who seem to have emerged fully formed from the shores where they live, drive these novels that are bookclub friendly, literarily worthy, and read well. Not one of these women is to be taken lightly. The men they marry, and throw back in to sea, at times captivate them, or annoy the hell out of them.

Olive Kitteridge (2008) - Elizabeth Strout

Living along the Maine coastline in the small town of Crosby, Olive plods along from middle age to her senior years,  cantankerous and generally in a bad mood. However, just below the suface, she also has high hopes for her son, her husband, and the occasional lovers. She unapologetically lives her life and God forbid you get in her way. This collection of interwoven stoies are driven by her moods, her infatuations and her ultimate loyalty. She carries much baggge, but her humanity is sometimes humorous -- at other times, tragic. Olive is there for the long haul, but the place she lives is uncomfortable, somewhere between guilt and anger. You might want to get to know this suvivor through the thirteen short tales that are as satisfying as any tight novel. You will also meet some of Crosby's colorful piano player, criminal types and just plain folks.

The Sea Lady (2006) - Margaret Drabble

This not one of Drabble's tightest novels (she's written about twenty), but it is very interesting as it follows the lives of Ailsa Kelman and her former childhood acquaintance and later lover Humphrey Clark. As with Olive, these are survivors even if their lives don't reach the heights they once aspired. Humphrey as a child spends the last summers of World War II in the sea coast town of Ornemouth, an experience that comes to haunt him for the rest of his life.Ailsa is also influenced by the strange acquaintances she makes that summer and later develops into an exhibitionist, famous feminist and cultural icon.She and Humphrey have their day in the sun, becoming the idealized hermaphrodite briefly, the completed soul, before they split and spend the rest of their lives trying to swim their way back to each other. The passage of those years, until they are both invited to the same seacoast paradise to receive lifetime achievement awards, is where our novel tries to tread water. Even in its flaws, this salty story sometimes floats.

The Maytrees (2007) - Annie Dillard

 

Lou Bigelow and Toby Maytree, meet and marry in Provincetown, Massachussetts following World War II. He is a native, molded by the beauty and ferocity of his native home. The two seem to have an idylic life, with a small band of other artists and philisophers who fashion a spartan life on the edge of a hauntingly beautiful seaside town. All seems to be going well until their son breaks his leg and all hell breaks loose in the marriage. Toby is bored with the almost silent, passive Lou. and with her own dear friend Dreary, he departs for Maine. He feels guilt about the son, maybe even Lou, but inscrutable Lou doesn't seem to mind that her husband has run off with her best friend. She likes the time alone. Two decades later, when the two return to Provincetown, the story seems to get a little improbable. Lou, you might say, has some passive aggressive tendencies. Annie Dillard has quite an imagination, a penchant for finding and using ancient words and an uncanny sense of the physical places that her characters inhabit at the edge of the sea. It might be interesting to note that what makes a husband happy in his 40s is different than what he expects in his later years.