1st Avenue

I liked the story up to this point  and thought I'd like the rest of it too, but the "issues of morality" that ensued got in the way, and the story unraveled from then on.

The characterization of Tom and Isabel stopped making sense when the couple ran into the age-old problem of whether or not to return the child to her biological mother, who is a distant relative of theirs, even though she wasn't mentally well (due to having lost both husband and child). While I understand the moral complications on both sides of the problem, I don't sympathize with Tom and Isabel's actions or the consequences they faced (and also avoided) following their decision to keep Lucy, then return her, only to take her back. Like I said, this story unraveled at this point.

And it was also around this point that the story lost that sweeping, melancholic, lovely-descriptive-language atmosphere of Janus Rock that Stedman so skillfully set up earlier. The spell broke, for me, when Tom and Isabel reluctantly decided to return Lucy, reasoning that the child would be better off in their care. Reality and consequences are often jarring, and the changes in tone and atmosphere of the story to reflect just that are well done, but what's left of the story more or less falls apart as this saga turns into melodrama.

The time was post-WWI, and the world had never had a "shortage" of orphans, especially not after big wars. If Isabel wanted to be a mother that badly, she and Tom could have visited orphanages on any one of their trips to the mainland. But here's my biggest problem with this story. Legal adoption isn't even considered an option between the spouses. Then again, there's no reason to bring it up in the story when you could have your main character, and supposedly most sympathetic POV, spend most of her time weeping, rejecting the reality of her life, and feeling sorry for herself. And also, why even consider anything else when a "miracle" child, along with her conveniently dead father, washes up on the beach. Why even bother finding the child's mother--she must also be conveniently dead, like the father, anyway--when you could make the best of such tragic circumstances by keeping her. Also convenient for Tom and Isabel? Paperwork, such as birth certificates, weren't such a hassle back then in the 1920s.

Originally I had plans for a longer critique of why this book and others like it don't do anything other than manipulate readers' emotions. I still have a copy of that longer review somewhere, but decided not to post it. Here's why: I am not a parent and I have no plans to become one, and because of that "perspective," I see the two main characters in the book, a childless couple who desperately want to become parents, as reckless and full of self-pity. Even after discussing this book with book clubbers (some are parents, many aren't), I still don't understand the motivation behind Stedman's characterization choices. I understand what she was aiming and her decision to tell this story. I just don't understand why the story had to be told in this particular this way.

It's obvious this book was written for the purpose of book club discussions. "Issues of morality" tend to liven things up when ideologies clash and people's true "fundamentalist values" surface, and usually what follows is a colorful exchange of words. I don't show up to book club meetings unless a book I like is chosen, but I always show up when "bait" books are chosen because they make for very interesting discussions. And this book did not disappoint.

Recommended for anyone who's always wanted to live in a lighthouse or in the middle of the ocean or both, but isn't sure if such a life would suit him or her. This book might help you make that decision.