It is a house on the beach . Honora doesn't mind renting--despite its age and all its flaws, the old house is the perfect place for a new marriage. She and Sexton throw themselves into fixing it up, just as they throw themselves into their new life together. Each morning, Honora collects sea glass washed up on the shore, each piece carrying a fifferent story in its muted hues.
Sexton finds a way to buy the house, but his timing is perfectly wrong. The economy takes a sickening plunge, and as financail pressures mount, Honora begins to see how little she knows this man she has married--and to realize just how threatening the world outside her front door can be.
Like those translucent shards that Honora finds on the beach, Sea Glass is layered with the textures, colors, and voices of another time. There is Vivian, an irreverent Boston Socialite who becomes Honora's closet friend even as she rejects every form of convention. McDermott, a man who works in a nearby mill, presses Honora's deepest notions of trust--even as he embroils her in a dangerous dispute. And there's Alphonse, a boy whose openness becomes the bond that holds these people together as their world is flying apart.
Reviewers and readers everywhere have admired Anita Shreve's ability to create a "literary novel of the caliber and craft of Edith Wharton or Henry Jame's" (Baltimore Sun). Sea Glass is an unforgettable story of trust and bettayal, marriage and attraction, from one of the most persuasive, farseeing, and deeply engaging writers of our time.
" The Last Time They Met is a flat-out, can't-put-it-down page-turner."
--Shelby Hearon, Chicago Tribune--
" The revelatory ending should have book groups arguing into the night. Shreve's cleverly designed act of prestidigitation is dazzling." --Robert Allen Papinchak, USA Today--