Reviewed by Timothy Niedermann
The Pages of the Sea, the engaging debut novel by Anne Hawk, takes place on an unnamed Caribbean island, where Wheeler, a pre-teen girl, misses her mother. Months before, her mother left the island to work in England, leaving Wheeler and her two teenage sisters, Adele and Hesta, to live with their aunt Innez and Innez’s sons Floyd, Jonathan, and Donelle. Innez’s sister Celeste also lives with them.
Another aunt, Geraldine, lives nearby with her husband, Morgan. They have no children of their own but take Wheeler and Donelle, who is close to Wheeler’s age, on occasional drives to the countryside in Morgan’s car, an old Hillman.
Innez’s house is in a hilly urban neighbourhood, from which one can see ships entering and leaving the harbour below. Wheeler watches the ships, hoping that her mother will send for them soon, and they can board a ship for the voyage to England, just as their mother had done.
The novel follows Wheeler as she adjusts to life in her new household. Much of what she does is familiar—school, church and Sunday school, holidays—but much is different. She explores her new neighbourhood with Donelle and tries to figure out her aunts. Celeste is forever working in the kitchen or feeding their chickens but doesn’t leave the property, while Innez is a forbidding presence who spends most of her time in her room. Floyd, who is the oldest child, seems to always be in a bad, often threatening mood.
Author Anne Hawk was raised in the Caribbean, on the island Grenada, as well as in Canada and the UK, where she lives now. Having lived on Grenada as a child, she is very capable at portraying island life from a young person’s perspective. In addition, all of the speech in the book is in the local dialect, which, although it takes a bit of getting used to, conveys authenticity. Also in dialect are Wheeler’s thoughts. This gives an extra layer of intimacy to the narrative: the reader is drawn closer into Wheeler’s confusion, doubts, and anxieties.
Wheeler is at root unhappy. She longs for her mother, but over time her memories of her mother become vaguer, while at the same time she tries to sort out her feelings, her understanding of the people around her.
Hawk successfully conveys the unique qualities of island life, especially the way in which people of limited financial means manage to get by, and how life on the island largely revolves around church-going and religious holidays. The portrayal of Lent is particularly vivid, as Hawk captures both the sobriety of dutiful observance and well as the exuberance of the celebration of the end of the fasting week.
The Pages of the Sea is a moving portrayal of a young girl’s efforts to grow out of a state of melancholy and confusion and acquire self-confidence and assertiveness, despite her young age.
The Pages of the Sea is published by Biblioasis.