Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan
Allen and Unwin, 2012. ISBN 9781742375052.
UK title: The Brides of Rollrock Island, David Fickling Books,
2012.
(Age 15+) Highly recommended. CBCA Winner Older readers, 2013,
Ditmar Award for Best Novel (2013), Aurealis Award Nominee for Young
Adult Novel (2012), Norma K Hemming Award (2013). Rollrock Island is
a small remote community where seals frequent the beaches. Strange
stories are secretly told of witches who have power over the seals
and of seal wives, beautiful women whose seal skins have been stolen
and who have married the fishermen on the island. Misskaella is a
tiny young girl, who is bullied by the island children and
overlooked by the young men. When she discovers that she has the
power to give the young men the seal bride that they so desire, the
consequences of this choice are far reaching.
Lanagan has taken this old Celtic folk tale and teased out the
emotions that face everyone when a young man buys himself an
irresistible sea-wife. Told from different viewpoints the reader is
taken along on a journey of desire, revenge, of loyalty and love and
of longing for the sea. The feelings of the husbands who are so
attracted to the seal women that they hide their skins where the
women can't find them are explored as well as the fathers who mourn
for their daughters who don't thrive on land and must be returned to
the sea. So are the feelings of the offspring, the young boys who
know how much their mams love them but how much they long for the
sea and the women who are abandoned by their husbands for the sea
wives. Even Misskaella's fate and grief as a result of her meetings
with the seal king is described poignantly although the reader can
have little sympathy for her manipulation of everyone's feelings as
she relentlessly pursues her revenge on the islanders.
This is beautifully written and rich tale that vividly showcases the
beauty and darkness of Lanagan's prose. The setting of Rollrock
Island sings to the reader, who can almost smell the sea water and
easily imagines the rocks, the fishing village and the isolation of
the community.
Sea hearts is a story for the mature, imaginative reader who will
find much to stimulate discussion and thought in its themes and
authorship.
Pat Pledger