A New York Times Notable Book of the Year“Brilliantly breathes life not only into the perils of living at sea, but also into the hidden dangers of domesticity, parenthood, and marriage. What a smart, swift, and thrilling novel.” —Lauren Groff, author of FloridaJuliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her stalled-out dissertation on confessional poetry when her husband, Michael, informs her that … poetry when her husband, Michael, informs her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. With their two kids—Sybil, age seven, and George, age two—Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their forty-four foot sailboat awaits them.
The initial result is transformative; the marriage is given a gust of energy, Juliet emerges from her depression, and the children quickly embrace the joys of being at sea. The vast horizons and isolated islands offer Juliet and Michael reprieve – until they are tested by the unforeseen.
A transporting novel about marriage, family and love in a time of unprecedented turmoil, Sea Wife is unforgettable in its power and astonishingly perceptive in its portrayal of optimism, disillusionment, and survival.
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Sea Wife is a gripping tale of survival at sea — but that’s just the beginning. Amity Gaige also manages, before she’s done, to probe the underpinnings of romantic love, marriage, literary ambition, political inclinations in the Trump age, parenthood, and finally, the nature of survival itself in our broken world. Gaige is thrillingly talented, and her novel enchants.
Sea Wife is an immersive pleasure. Amity Gaige captivates us, tricks us, and transports us. She understands the inner and the outer world — from quiet misery to murderous seas — and there is no world she cannot explore and illuminate.
Sea Wife was not quite the bright adventure story I thought it would be. There was an adventure, but there was also unmanaged mental health issues, a failing marriage, disillusionment with life, and some mystery.
Juliet and Michael are married with two kids. They’re increasingly unhappy with each other and their individual lives. When Michael’s malaise leads him to a boat harbor, he meets a boat broker who spurs him into action. Although she has misgivings and a great fear, in an effort to salvage their marriage, Juliet agrees to a prolonged voyage through the Caribbean. If that is not enough for readers to determine that something is going to go very wrong, Michael seals the fate of the voyage by changing the name of the boat.
There are good days and bad. There are idyllic afternoons spent on deserted islands playing with their children, and there are frightening storms that tossed the boat and its passengers. Through it all, the children, Sybil and George, are gamers. They embrace the adventure! Sybil is particularly adorable and observant. From Juliet’s perspective, Michael seems to blossom at sea. My take on Michael is that his behavior is at best manic and at worst, desperate. When he starts getting mysterious calls and conveniently loses the boat’s SAT phone, I start to question Michael’s intentions and odd behavior.
Sea Wife is told in dual POV with the timeline toggling between past and present. Michael’s story is told mostly through his ‘captain’s log/diary”, and Juliet tells her version via reminiscing about all that happened. Some of the POV transitions are rough; there are no headers or chapter titles to tell you who is telling the story, and sometimes the POV changes mid-page. This roughness is sometimes like different currents colliding, and I felt like I was underwater struggling to get to air. In hindsight, the layout does add to the tense atmosphere and fractures in mental and emotional composure. In the end, it is hard to decide who was the victim, who was just unlucky, and who was the survivor. Days after finishing, I can’t stop pondering and questioning the story and its characters.
I devoured this book from the first line- “Where does a mistake begin?”
Gaige writes with a Raymond Carver dialogue style that perfectly suites the story and accomplishes the challenging feat or creating a page-turner with character deep dives. SEA WIFE explores marriage and parenthood, the tie between personal politics and childhood, and the haunting impact of the past on the present.
Taut as a thriller, emotionally precise yet threaded with lyricism, Sea Wife is at once the compelling story of a family’s glorious, misbegotten seafaring adventure and an allegory for life itself. This is an unforgettable novel.
Sea Wife is an immersive pleasure. Amity Gaige captivates us, tricks us, and transports us. She understands the inner and the outer world — from quiet misery to murderous seas — and there is no world she cannot explore and illuminate.
So much more than expected!
You know what happens to the husband in the first few pages of the book. I had to kept me reading to find out what happened to him. They were a very adventurous family.
Beautiful writing and riveting plot. A master class in fiction writing.
I didn’t like it at all
Few writers have portrayed marriage and parenthood with more fierce intelligence than Amity Gaige, but in Sea Wife, she has outdone herself. This is an unforgettable portrait of a family that ventures out to sea, only to be riven by the weight of the past, and the politics of the present. Piercingly written and compelling from beginning to end, Sea Wife is a major accomplishment.
If you love stories about the sea and those brave souls who dare, Sea Wife is a book for you. It’s a suspenseful story and full of surprises. The rich dialogue between husband and wife offers some of the best script lines I’ve ever read about the intricate and complex relationship between two people. Sea Wife also conveys with exquisite tenderness the effects of depression.
I listened to the audiobook and was particularly entranced by the use of three different talented narrators to emphasize the different points of view. Cassandra Campbell in particular was, as always, wonderful. The depiction of a failing marriage set in the stressful and by turns frightening and freeing world of the sailing life was devastatingly accurate. Add in the stresses and rewards of parenting, issues of mental health, and the creative life, and you have a rich, complex and very satisfying read.
Michael Partlow decides to take his family (including children aged 7 and 2) sailing in the Caribbean for a year, even thought he and his wife Juliet are not experienced sailors. The first sentence of the book, in Juliet’s voice, is: “Where does a mistake begin?” So you know pretty quickly that the sea voyage you’re about to read, adventuresome, and at times romantic, will not end well. Told in 2 voices, Juliet’s and also Michael’s from his logbook/diary, this book is a beautifully written page-turner. It’s slightly vague ending is fine for literary fiction (which this is), but the page-turner aspect really needs to end with a tighter resolution, in my opinion. But I stilled loved it and highly recommend it.
So many powerful thoughts and beautiful sentences. I highlights everything.
I was completely gripped by this book. I read it in a day, which is almost unheard of for me (since having kids). It’s a thrilling read, but also has wise (and sad) things to say about relationships and parenting. I loved it.
This novel had everything that I love about a book. It is transformative in it’s descriptions of life at sea with small children and the many challenges of modern marriage. The writing style is unique, the characters of Michael, Juliet and their seven year old daughter Sybil are very well developed. It does take a bit of patience in the beginning when the stage is being set for the rest of the novel, but it then moves along at a quick pace.
Juliet has been prone to bouts of depression and has felt as though she left her dreams of earning her doctorate degree behind as she can’t seem to concentrate on her dissertation. Michael has had a very good job but one that he dislikes going to day after day. He starts to go to a marina that is close by and talking to a 60 year old man about boats, sailing and life at sea. Michael’s father had taken him sailing on the Great Lakes when he was young and he had loved everything about it.
Michael is finally getting desperate to get out of the rut he feels his job and marriage have become. The marriage is crumbling around both of their disappointments. He begins to tell Juliet his plan of buying a 44 ft sailboat and taking a year off of work, all of them, to sail to Panama and enjoy the freedom of no daily routine. He convinces her that the children will be better for it, that the sea will teach them more than they can learn in the classroom.
As the story of their voyage takes off we will learn their feelings throughout because of the two points of view.
Juliet’s story is told in her narration of the present and past. She describes what she is going through now after the sea voyage is over and in the past from her telling us about what happened those months away.
Michael’s point of view is told through what begins as a captain’s log and ends up being a journal of his feelings about the sea, his marriage and some of his true feelings about Juliet. It is almost a confessional “Can you talk your love away? Because I love her and I think somewhere she still loves me. The truth is we can’t get the timing right.”
The descriptions of life at sea were so well described I could picture the beautiful blue sky and endless ocean. Describing a storm at sea in which Juliet had to sail the boat I felt myself tense during the entire description. I kept wanting to be able to help her, in the end she found the help she needed.
I’d like to just briefly quote the author from an interview on Libro.FM “I got interested in people who raise their kids on boats. Those people seemed both a little reckless, and very free”.
There is so much more I could say about this book but I want you to discover the beauty of it for yourself. If you are looking for a great escape read and/or an adventure that you can get lost in, this is definitely the book for you.
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” — John Lennon
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss, I also want to thank the author for the privilege of reading this advanced copy.
good day…
Sea Wife by Amity Gaige is a glimpse into a real, flawed, complicated human relationship and marriage. The novel narrates between Juliet and Michael, Juliet through narrative looking back on a voyage and journey, and Michael through the Captain’s Log.
This book is not an easy read in the fact that it feels so real and hits home in all of the normal things that affect wives, husbands, moms, parents, friends, and foes. There is almost a poetic prose in the way there is waxing and waning in the course of Juliet and Michael’s marriage and the waves of the ocean that they travel through during their time on the sea. Their destination is revealed on multiple levels.
I enjoyed the multiple layers and complexity of the characters and their relationships. I enjoyed the “realness” of the story. I thought it was interesting and appropriately paced, and thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
4/5 stars