The somewhat convoluted plot follows the lives of four women. It starts with sisters Rose, Nellie, and Vivian in rural England. They lead an extraordinarily sheltered life.
Rose is a dedicated spinster and determined her much younger sisters will follow in her footsteps. However, after Rose's unexpected death Nellie and Vivian quickly fall off that bandwagon and into the arms of farmhand Joe Ferrier.
The girls face numerous hardships and eventually fall apart. Nellie moves to London and marries a war veteran. She has a child, Birdie, whose own storyline begins in 1939.
Tragedy flows from mother to daughter and old secrets resurface to haunt the family.
The plot cycles through the first and second world wars and all the women have aspects of their lives where history seems to repeat itself. This novel's main concern is with family: what keeps them apart, and what brings them together.
Water is a prevalent symbol in the novel, and the author uses it in many different capacities: deep water that buries secrets, violent floods that resurface things hidden, the sea as a symbol of escape, but, most importantly water as cleansing.
Perhaps at an attempt of realism, Hodgkinson left many of the sub-plots unfinished. On the one hand, I can see why she did that - people really do take their secrets to the grave. On the other hand, I would very much have liked the closure she could have written, as in some cases, the subplots were a large part of the novel.
Despite the lack of closure that the ending brings, the evocative language, well-written characters, interesting time period, and circular storyline made this an appealing read.
- Fiona Glasgow is a Master of Information Studies student in Dunedin.
