Book Report: Tidal Flats

16. Cynthia Newberry Martin, Tidal Flats (20019) (9/4/19) 

This is a spare book: about feelings, yearnings, giving and taking, ultimately forgiveness. It reminded me of a play, because its cast of characters is small: Cass, the protagonist, who wants her husband, Ethan, to come home and stay home; Cass's librarian friend Vee, who thrives on fear; a bartender, Singer; a neighbor, Katie, with a new baby and her husband; Ethan's journalist friend Wheeler; the Three Fates, old women in Cass's care. The setting is also small: Atlanta—with threads to Provincetown, Mass., and Afghanistan.

The story is about a pact, which is broken. Or is it? Ethan is a photographer who spends a lot of time in Afghanistan; he's well known for a portrait he shot of a young woman with amber eyes. He's currently involved in a project to distribute cameras to Afghans so that they can document their own lives. He met Cass three years earlier, they fell in love, and he promised he'd come home for good by their third anniversary (the pact), but in the meantime he needs to keep returning to Afghanistan. Events intervene as the third anniversary looms.

The story is basically about Cass's own doubts and worry, and struggle with what she wants and needs. There are episodes in her past that keep her from wanting children, which Ethan does want. Vee and the Three Fates offer tangential advice, simply by being who they are. Singer offers superficial comfort. She is also anxious over Ethan's absence in Afghanistan. Separation is hard. And then he is kidnapped

Everything works out in the end, but with a twist. A big one.

I guess that's like life, though the twists aren't always big. Well, and things "working out in the end" is sometimes questionable. But . . . life. It happens. But we also have to work at making it happen the way we want. That, perhaps, is the message of this lovely book.

I didn't flag any passages in this book to quote. It's fine writing, and I sat with the last three-quarters of the book reading voraciously, wanting to find out what happens. I was quite satisfied with the end.