The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
Scribner, 2012
Paperback, 345 pages
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind.
A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
Review:If you didn’t take the time to read the synopsis first, let me break it down for you. This story is set on a little island set in Australia where a young man lives with his younger wife. He’s returned from war and found his calling in being a lighthouse keeper. She’s a feisty young thing with a desire for a family. Unfortunately for them, they haven’t been able to successfully bring a child to the world and as chance would have it, a baby comes to the island in a little boat. Instead of reporting said baby (and her dead father), the couple decides to keep the baby girl as their own. But no secrets can stay hidden forever and the secret can change many lives once it’s revealed.
It was pretty intense. And it’s one of those stories where you can see and almost understand some of the irrational decision the characters make. You can feel compassion for the man who only wants to make his wife happy after she gave up the world to live on this tiny island. You can feel deeply for the mothers and women in this story who only want their children to be happy and alive and safe. And while you will also know what the “right” thing is for everyone, you get pulled in by the currents of the story and realize that right and wrong can feel very subjective even when it really isn’t.
I really enjoyed the novel. And strangely, I don’t really want to watch the film adaptation. At least not now. I want to keep this novel as it is in my memory at the moment.
And despite what one may think (a potential date actually called it this when I told him what my current read was), this is not a “romance novel.” It’s about family, love, loss, and life. Sure, there is a little romance in it – as is usually the case when stories include a young married couple, but it would be unfair to categorize as simply a romance novel.
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