Between Tides
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A captivating historical novel set on Cape Cod and North Carolina's Outer Banks, perfect for readers of Where the Crawdads Sing and Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
1890s, Cape Cod: Between tides, a man deserts his wife and his post as keeper of the Chatham Beach Lifesaving Station to start a new family far to the south, at Cape Hatteras.
1940s: His daughter, en route to serve in World War II with the Red Cross, travels to Cape Cod where she meets his first wife, Blythe, reanimating a life she had long buried: memories of her courtship, her bitter losses, and her husband’s slow-motion vanishing.
Set on two wild seascapes, Cape Cod and North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Between Tides is a lyrical novel for readers of Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, and Marilynne Robinson—a story of two women stitching together a family ripped at the seams and discovering that even through absence, love’s presence is everlasting.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Khoury debuts with a mesmerizing account of a restless man from Cape Cod who starts a new life on the Outer Banks at Cape Hatteras with a new family. In 1890s Chatham, Mass., Gilead Lodge opens a seaside hotel and abruptly leaves his first wife, Blythe, to strike out for Cape Hatteras. His story is delivered mainly via Blythe in 1942, when Gil's daughter Gillian, from his second marriage, mysteriously turns up on her porch, eager to hear tales of her late father. Blythe regales Gillian with stories of Gil's adventures, such as a failed attempt to save a capsized ship (he was also keeper of Chatham's Life-Saving Station) just before he left for North Carolina, and the origins of Gil's relationship to Gillian's mother, who was 12 when they met. While Blythe's limited perspective on Gil makes the plot feel a bit too simplistic, Khoury describes Gil's relationship to the Outer Banks with lyrical precision: "For Gil was wed not to us, but to a place, and to that place he was the most faithful of men." This should do the trick as elevated beach reading.
