The Story of Land and Sea

June 2, 2014
A bereaved father and his son-in-law struggle to understand the tragedies that have befallen them in Smith’s debut novel, which is set among the marshes of coastal North Carolina during the uncertain time of the American Revolution. John, a widowed soldier, is perplexed by the faith of others in a God who takes so much and gives so little. When his beloved daughter, Tabitha, contracts yellow fever, he stows her away with him on a schooner bound for Bermuda in a desperate attempt to curb the ravages of the disease. Tabitha’s grandfather, Asa, owner of a small plantation called Long Ridge, grieves over the loss of his granddaughter. He also mourns her mother, his only daughter Helen, whom John stole away for a happy interlude of love and freedom on the high seas before her untimely death in childbirth. Helen’s slave companion, Moll, like Asa, feels left behind, married off to another slave she did not know. Her only consolation is her feisty first-born son Davy, although she has other children, all girls. When John decides to strike out over land on a journey westward, Moll’s heart is irrevocably shattered. Smith’s soulful language of loss is almost biblical, and the descriptions of her characters’ sorrows are poetic and moving.

June 15, 2014

Set on the North Carolina coast during and following the American Revolution, this debut novel centers on Asa, owner of a small turpentine plantation, whose daughter, Helen, falls in love with soldier and sometime pirate John and goes to sea with him after the war when her father refuses to bless the marriage. Rounding out the cast of primary characters is Helen's slave, Moll, whose lack of choice in creating her own destiny is sharply contrasted with Helen's. Somewhat ironically, despite the setting in a time of war, it is the females' lives that are most at risk, as three generations of women succumb to childbirth or illness. There is a pervasive sense of loneliness and loss throughout the novel. Smith's spare prose and storytelling style is resonant of oral history or folk tales, and the early chapters focusing on John and his daughter Tabitha, and her desire for the sea, call to mind Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife. At first, this style creates something of a remove for the reader, and it's not until the story of John and Helen's courtship that one begins to be emotionally invested. VERDICT Despite the many sad events, the reader eventually engages, and the novel ends with a note of hope.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

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