Review of THE OCEAN IN WINTER by Elizabeth de Veer (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This novel focuses on the lives of three sisters whose mother committed suicide 25 years earlier.  Alex, the eldest, is a nurse who is travelling in India but is called back home when she inherits a ramshackle house.  Colleen, the middle sister, is a devoted mother whose marriage is disintegrating.  Riley, the youngest, is a model in New York; she is dealing with a number of issues but has cut herself off from her family.

Chapters are alternated among the three women, each of whom narrates in the first person.  It is obvious that the trauma of their mother’s death continues to impact them.  Alex had to look after her sisters because their father became emotionally detached after their mother’s death; she comments that “I don’t pursue the things I love because my family needs me.”  Colleen focuses on her children so much so that her husband feels unneeded and unwanted; he tells her, “’I know that’s because your mom wasn’t there to take care of you when you were growing up.’”  Riley describes herself as “Pretty and damaged, I am the daughter without a mother.”

Obviously, the book examines a number of heavy subjects:  mental health, sexual abuse, addiction, suicide.  Though it focuses on the long-term effects on survivors of suicide loss, there is also a great deal of compassion for those who choose suicide.  They are not portrayed as selfish or manipulative or melodramatic, but as victims of depression and despair. 

The novel begins slowly and that slow pace negatively affected my enjoyment.  Though gradually I became more interested, I remained bothered by the author’s tendency to explain everything.  For instance, she tells us that “Addiction changes a person from the inside out.  The poisoned urgency of narcotics takes over every conscious part of human intent until the person they used to be almost evaporates.”  Also, the reader is told that “The experience of sexual abuse in childhood does not end with the conclusion of the abuse.  It’s trauma.  It gets replayed over and over a million times in the mind of the survivor.  It makes feeling safe ever again difficult or impossible; survivors turn to drugs to blot out the memory.”  These didactic passages are unnecessary. 

There are also some events that do not ring true.  Alex inherits a house from someone she barely knew?  Letters are used too often to manipulate plot:  Alex “misses” a letter, a retired mailman doesn’t open his mail, and an unopened letter explains so much in the end?  A lawyer would allow his home to be uninsured?  The private investigator Colleen hires to find Riley doesn’t always seem to behave in a strictly professional manner. 

The book does end on a positive note which, given the title, I expected:  “The Earth keeps turning, every day, every night, each time giving us the chance to start over.  In the night’s darkest moments, we so easily forget that morning will come.  We can’t stop it; it simply happens, just like spring follows winter, just as the tides of the ocean rise and fall.” 

The Ocean in Winter does have some of the tell-tale problems of a debut novel, but there is still much to recommend it.  I will certainly watch for Elizabeth de Veer’s next offering. 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.