Book review: *Sea Escape* by Lynne Griffin

Sea Escape by Lynne Griffin

Back-of-the-book blurb:  Laura Martinez is wedged in the middle place, grappling with her busy life as a nurse, wife, and devoted mom to her two young children when her estranged mother, Helen, suffers a devastating stroke. In a desperate attempt to lure her mother into choosing life, Laura goes to Sea Escape, the pristine beach home that Helen took refuge in after the death of her beloved husband, Joseph. There, Laura hunts for the legendary love letters her father wrote to her mother when he served as a reporter for the Associated Press during wartime Vietnam.

Weaving back and forth from Laura’s story to her mother’s, beginning in the idyllic 1950s with Helen’s love affair with Joseph through the tumultuous Vietnam War period on to the present, Sea Escape looks at what women face in their everyday lives—the balancing act of raising capable and happy children and being accomplished and steadfast wives while still being gracious and good daughters.

She Is Too Fond of Books’ review:  Lynne Griffin‘s Sea Escape is listed on Entertainment Weekly’s list of Top Ten Must Read Summer Books, but don’t assume that means that it’s a light and fluffy beach book!  Griffin tackles several issues in this gem of women’s fiction – women’s relationships to their mothers, husbands, and children; that elusive balance which so many search for; family secrets that come between us; and the way events halfway around the world can affect us in our seemingly impervious suburban bubbles.  The various threads of the novel form an entertaining and thought-provoking read.

From the beginning chapters I was struck by the range of emotion expressed by Griffin’s characters and transferred to me as I read their stories.  Laura’s part-time position in the postpartum nursery, her clear love of her children, and her singular focus on care for Helen after the stroke evoke compassion.  Why then, was there such disharmony between mother and daughter?  Laura seemed to be almost invisible to Helen before her illness.  Laura, in turn, was controlling and angry when well-meaning help was offered by her husband (Christian) or friends:

All Christian had been doing since my mother got sick was to present me with kind gestures and tender words.  But with each piece of advice he offered, with every new situation he efficiently managed, I felt more inadequate.

Through chapters alternately told in the past and present, we learn that Laura’s relationship with Helen has hardened in response to Helen’s treatment of her, yet, Laura so desperately wants to make things right between them.  Even in her 40s, Laura is the little girl trying to please her mother:

… I was willing to do whatever I could to see my mother’s smile return … it reminded me of life before my father died, when my mother’s happy look was a constant in our relationship.

We see Helen in the present only after her stroke, when she is disabled and struggling.  I’m very impressed and touched by the way Griffin handles Helen’s character after the stroke; she writes with such compassion, realistically portraying the effects of stroke while keeping the character’s dignity.

The setting is a fictional town in coastal Massachusetts.  Readers of this blog know that I’m usually bothered by fictional names given to places I know, that I get sidetracked trying to figure out which town the author is referencing.  Not in this case.  Griffin places Helen in Anaskaket, a likely-sounding Native American name for a town in the Bay State.  Laura and Christian live nearby in Magnolia, a fitting hometown for a man who designs award-winning landscaping for a living.  However, the serenity implied by Anaskaket and Magnolia aren’t enough to buoy Laura when she struggles to balance the needs of her mother, her husband, and her children:

(p 183) Unlike the ornamental grass that lined the path to the beach, planted near the seashore because of its ability to bend to the constancy of the wind, I felt as if I were about to break.

It is through flashbacks and a collection of letters from Joseph (working as a war correspondent in Vietnam) to Helen that we learn the fuller story of this family.  In contrast to the cold and controlling mother that Laura has seen for the past 30 years, we get to know a younger Helen, one who is carefree and bubbly, who takes pleasure in being courted by Joseph and in preparing a beautiful home for them to share.  What happened to the woman who saw beauty in textiles and so carefully crafted Sea Escape for her young family?  Laura thinks she may never learn what caused the shift in her mother’s behavior, but she, and the reader, will enjoy a bittersweet satisfaction as the layers of this novel are revealed.

About the author:  Lynne Griffin teaches at Wheelock College and at Grub Street Writers in Boston, and often discusses family life issues on local television.  Her previous novel, Life Without Summer, was named a Target Breakout Book and a Borders Summer Read.  In addition to the EW list mentioned above, Sea Escape is on the July 2010 Indie Notables list from IndieBound (bookseller recommendations).  For more information on the author and her work, visit Lynne Griffin’s website, her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter.

Follow Lynne Griffin’s TLC Book Tour for other thoughts/reviews, guest posts, interviews, andgiveaways (yes, check back here in the next few days for your chance to win a copies of both Sea Escape and Life Without Summer!)

• Tuesday, July 6th:  Peeking Between the Pages
• Wedensday, July 7th:  S. Kristinas Books
• Thursday, July 8th:  She is Too Fond of Books
• Monday, July 12th:  Bookstack
• Tuesday, July 13th:  Caribousmom
• Wednesday, July 14th:  Red Lady’s Reading Room
• Thursday, July 15th:  Booking Mama
• Monday, July 19th:  Raging Bibliomania
• Tuesday, July 20th:  Beth Fish Reads
• Wednesday, July 21st: Maw Books Blog
• Thursday, July 22nd:  Dolce Bellezza
• Monday, July 26th:  Books Like Breathing
• Tuesday, July 27th:  Write Meg
• Wednesday, July 28th:  Thoughts From an Evil Overlord
• Thursday, July 29th:  As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves