Name: The Opposite Shore
Rating: 3 (1 reviews)
Author: Maryanne Stahl

Maryanne Stahl's new novel, The Opposite Shore, begins aboard the Ariel, a sailing boat, on Memorial Day, on the first family sail of the summer. Rose and William, their sixteen year old daughter Miranda, and Rose's sister, Anna, have spent every summer sailing the Ariel since William inherited the boat from his father. Rose spends her time aboard the boat thinking of painting. Her husband and sister are passionate sailors; Rose sees sailing as one of the unspoken accommodations, small sacrifices, that one makes in adjusting to a partner. In the first two chapters, Stahl deftly presents a "pretty good" marriage, decent people who love each other, who have arrived at a series of unspoken compromises. They respect each others work: Rose is a painter, William is a university lecturer. They are both committed to their daughter and her welfare. They both realise they have a satisfactory life, a satisfactory marriage, and that to expect more is part of the romanticism of youth. Rose, like her sister, has settled for what is available. She has satisfactory work and the companionship of her sister and her sister's family. Only Miranda, a selfish and self-centered sixteen year old, still expects a "brave new world" with wonders in it. This Memorial Day, things change. Rose discovers her husband and sister exchanging their first kiss. Angry and hurt, Rose insists her husband leave the family home and refuses to speak to her sister. This novel, like Stahl's first novel, examines the complexities of family life. She looks at the relationship of a parent and child, of sisters, as well as that of husband and wife. The kiss, and its discovery, cannot be isolated from all that has preceded it. When her lawyer offers to lend Rose his island cottage, she takes her unwilling daughter and goes to the island. Rose settles in, paints, and tries to deal with the practical and emotional debris left by her feelings of betrayal. But Rose is not simply an innocent party in a romantic triangle. There are no `bad guys' in the novel. There are three adults, likeable, decent and responsible, bewildered by something they thought would never happen. The perspective of William and Anna are as important to the story as that of Rose. They attempt to balance their needs as individuals with their obligations to each other. The novel ends on the Island, during Labour Day weekend, when the characters come together once again in a satisfying ending. The Opposite Shore is more than a mid-life crisis novel, although it describes very well the somewhat flat feeling typical of the forties decade! It's a highly moral novel that avoids presenting moral choices in black and white. It's a novel that emphasizes family obligations without ignoring their cost to the individual while doing the opposite - showing how an individual's needs have a cost to the family. It's simply told, but satisfying in its complexity of character and context. I strongly recommend it.

The Opposite Shore -

Maryanne Stahl

resenha de O beijo Escarlate

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