Oystercatchers

by Susan Fletcher

Book Overview

From the author of the award-winning 'Eve Green', 'Oystercatchers' is a heart-rending tale about the bonds of sisterhood and one woman's great remorse.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393331989
• ISBN13: 9780393331981
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 354 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Captivating in prose but confusing too

I found the book to be one I did not want to put down for most the book, but towards the mid point of second half it became harder to continue...rather as is stated by Publisher's Weekly review, here's an air of self-importance that's difficult to penetrate...one thinks it will go away but it does not. Had it not been for this being a library book due and unable to renew, I might have given up.

"I do not lay a false, lovely world down on your bed anymore."

The scent of the Atlantic permeates Fletcher's gorgeous prose, the poignant bedside confession of an elder sister to her comatose sibling, Amy, injured in a fall near their home on the Welsh coast. Moira, for years an only child, frolicked in the turbulent waves, challenging nature's majesty and enjoying the complete attention of her parents. At first befuddled in primary school, a pair of spectacles solves Moira's learning challenges, the world suddenly made clear, the veins on leaves, infinite particles of sand, the lacy fingers of sea splash. Developing an early interest in science, Moira is barely aware of George and Miriam's painful reality: Miriam is unable to successfully carry another pregnancy to term, the past littered with lost infants. In Moira's eleventh year, she is precipitously sent to boarding school far from her beloved shore, inadvertently learning of her mother's latest pregnancy. Thrust into the bustling world of boarding school, Locke Hall Resident School for Girls, the experience is a shock to the pensive Moira, surrounded by chattering females of every temperament, quickly becoming the source of ridicule with her gangly body, pale skin and red-framed glasses. The thoughtless cruelty of such schools is legendary; Miriam withdraws further into her shell, isolation a familiar companion. Amy's birth only exacerbates Moira's pain, the knowledge of this usurper in the center of her parents' attentions while she languishes far from home. Moira makes peace with this changed existence, wandering the empty halls of the school on vacation. Excelling in her studies, the years pass, graduation approaching. While her roommates sneak out to rendezvous with boys, Moira pretends sleep; later, by chance she meets Ray, a boy with white-blonde hair who leaves the country to travel the globe, sending missives to the young woman who has captured his imagination. This one extraordinary event catapults Moira into another dimension, where hope and even love is possible. Moira tells all these things to Amy, forming late a bond she cruelly withheld from the younger girl. To Amy Moira reveals the adolescent agony of Locke Hall; unexpected opportunity for love with Ray, an aspiring artist who becomes her forgiving husband; the letters to Aunt Til, her mother's twin, an actress who resides in London and suffers many failed romances; and the aching memories of Stackpole Quay, the wild coastline that matched her untamed heart. A confession, an apology, Moira pours out years of hoarded emotions, rage and disappointment in language so evocative that the call of gulls fills the air and loneliness is tangible. Moira has much to confess, her greatest flaw that she leaves no room for forgiveness or a younger sister, a pervasive self-doubt that causes her to ignore the easy love proffered, believing herself insufficient to receive it. Through this great tragedy, Moira finds Amy and rediscovers Ray, in turn coming home to herself. Painfully dissecting the dam