Stevie‘s review of The Winter Sea by Di Morrissey
Family Saga published by St. Martin’s Griffin 30 Dec 14
I love me a good family saga, although sometimes cramming the whole lot into one book can make the unfolding of events feel either rushed or sparse. On the other hand, great sprawling, multi-volume family sagas can get a little overblown and may indeed over-egg the pudding by adding in insignificant details about people and places, or by bringing minor characters briefly to centre stage in order to add their histories unnecessarily into the mix. The Winter Sea attempts to tell a story spanning an entire century in a single non-doorstep-sized volume, which seems quite a task, but could feasibly be possible.
Sadly, this tactic doesn’t really work for me. We begin with the Australian family’s founder growing up on a small island off the coast of Italy, falling in love for the first time, and leaving his family and friends to fight in the First World War. Returning home, Guiseppe finds that his girlfriend has died and that many of the villagers from his childhood are struggling to survive on their sparse lands in the reduced economic circumstances following the end of the war. Guiseppe, however, is highly resourceful and decides to seek his fortune overseas – and then send money back to those he’s leaving behind. Missing the ship that should have taken him to America, he decides instead to join a cargo vessel headed for Australia. On the voyage he falls in love again, but this time with a young woman who is on her way to be married. They part as friends, and Guiseppe finds work as a fisherman – using the skills he learned from his father and grandfather to build up a successful business in Whitby Point– and marries the daughter of his main financial backer in the process.
Jumping forward eighty years, Cassie leaves her unsatisfactory job and unfaithful husband and rents a holiday cottage in the off-season at Whitby Point while she decides what to do next with her life. Finding a stray dog after a storm brings her into contact with the local vet – Michael, one of Guiseppe’s many descendants still living in the town. Michael encourages Cassie to follow her dreams, and she takes on the challenge of doing up a failed coffee shop and turning it into a restaurant selling locally sourced dishes: including seafood supplied by Michael’s family.
All is going well, until one of Guiseppe’s surviving sons – Michael’s great-uncle – dies, leaving a considerable sum of money to Cassie. At first the whole family turns against Cassie, believing her to have conned the old man in the days leading up to his death – but the will was written long before Cassie met any of the family, and so Cassie and Michael have to dig deep into their respective family histories to uncover what links them, and the truth behind the tragedy that split Cassie’s father from his Whitby Point family and friends.
I find this book very slow to get started, with the whole first half feeling like a recitation of the history of the early twentieth century and how events directly affected Guiseppe, followed by a rather bland report of how Cassie comes to the town and the details of her meetings with each significant relative. The second half of the book picks up a little, but I find the final reveal of what really happened to be a tad disappointing and ended the book not really certain of why anyone had bothered hushing things up for so long.
Overall, an interesting book in terms of its Australian setting and Italian immigrant characters, but one that is sadly let down by trying to pack too much information into too few pages.
Grade: C
Summary:
Escaping an unhappy marriage and an unsatisfactory job, Cassie Holloway moves to the little Australian coastal town of Whitby Point. There she meets the Aquino family, whose fishing business was founded by their ancestor, Giuseppe, an Italian immigrant, some ninety years before. Life for Cassie on the south west coast is sweet as she sets up a successful restaurant and falls in love with Giuseppe’s great grandson Michael. But when the family patriarch dies, a devastating family secret is revealed which threatens to destroy her dreams. Cassie’s future happiness now rests with her quest for the truth.
Read an excerpt.
