Review: The Seas by Samantha Hunt

Title: The Seas
Author: Samantha Hunt
Publisher: Corsair, Constable & Robin, 2010
First published: Picador, U.S. 2006
Rating: 4.5 stars

Here is a synopsis of The Seas, taken from Goodreads.com:

The narrator of The Seas lives in a tiny, remote, alcoholic, cruel seaside town. An occasional chambermaid, granddaughter to a typesetter, and daughter to a dead man, awkward and brave, wayward and wilful, she is in love (unrequited) with an Iraq War veteran thirteen years her senior. She is convinced that she is a mermaid. What she does to ease the pain of growing up lands her in prison. What she does to get out is the stuff of legend. In the words of writer Michelle Tea, The Seas is "creepy and poetic, subversive and strangely funny, [and] a phenomenal piece of literature."

When I read the blurb of this book after seeing it on the longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction, it was one of the books on the list I was most looking forward to reading.

When I first started reading, though, I didn’t like this book. Or, more precisely, I didn’t like the narrator or her style of narration. By the time I got to the end of The Seas, though, the style of the narration was probably what I liked most about it. It’s a very disjointed style of narration, as though she is fishing for the right words and only finding the wrong ones. This novel is one that’s obsessed with the right words. Unsurprising, when one of the main characters – the narrator’s grandfather – is writing a dictionary, of sorts. The novel spirals in on itself until all you’re left with are fragments of the narrator’s unstable consciousness, a few of the “right” words, and the sea. Of course, the sea.

The novel opens with the narrator trying to outrun the sea as its reflection fills her rearview mirror. It ends with the narrator and her mother swimming in the sea. And as for the rest of the novel, the sea batters it from every direction, a merciless presence in the troubled mind of a narrator who believes she is a mermaid. She is also in love with a man, Jude, thirteen years her senior. Her love for him is almost as strong a presence as the sea; it fills her every thought, nearly drowning her. And then constantly lurking in the background of the novel is the narrator’s father – missing, presumed dead. Her father, who she believes is also a mermaid, returned to the sea and waiting for her. As the novel progresses and the narrator’s grasp on reality becomes more and more tenuous, the sea and her love for Jude take over. Even ending up in prison does nothing to reassert her grip on reality.

I found myself wanting to believe what the narrator believed, but at the same time being completely terrified by her. Her gradual retreat from reality was spellbinding to observe, and the bizarre relationship between the narrator and Jude gave the story a heart that was alternately empty and overflowing with emotion.

This was a really well-written novel, hauntingly beautiful, but terribly sad. Highly recommended: nearly 5 stars.*

*I’ll admit that my 5-star system is flawed. I think of the books in relation to one another, rather than in relation to the system. So it’s possible that I’ll add another star or two to the rating system for incredible books like Norwegian Wood or something, but for now, we’ll let it be.