Review by Booklist Review
Magariel's (One of the Boys, 2017) sophomore novel follows Marlene and Les, who, many years back, tumbled into romance, conceived a child, and decided to get married and settle in their hollowed-out East Coast town. Les, a scallop fisherman whose work takes him on intense two-week stints at sea, missed out on their daughter's childhood, and when tragedy struck their family, Marlene and Les were torn apart. Now, Les spends even more time on the boat, immersed in the grueling and dangerous work. While he's away, Marlene befriends sex workers, spending hours cooking and caring for them. When she develops a maternal kinship with one in particular, the relationship jars Les, though he recognizes that his absence and the perils of his job have made life difficult for his wife. To move forward together, Les must confront his destiny and Marlene must confront her grief. Tight prose and winsome romance make this a modern Hemingway--grit at sea thrust forth into the era of strict fishing regulations and Narcan. Marlene and Les are gorgeous characters. Readers will fall in love.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In the moody latest from Magariel (after One of the Boys), married couple Les and Marlene, who live in a Northeastern seaside village they call Neverland, have grown apart after the accidental death of their daughter, Angie, years earlier. Les, a commercial fisherman, spends his nights in his boat, trawling dangerous waters with his crew and working himself ragged to deal with his pain. The boat's band of outcasts includes JW--so-called because he has a John Wayne quote for every situation--along with Monk, Booby, and Hoover. Like Les, they're all on the run from one trauma or another. Meanwhile, Marlene drives through the rundown district called the Villas by night, which is where she meets and comes to care for Josie, a homesick sex worker in thrall to a cunning man named Bill. With Josie acting as a buffer, Les and Marlene learn to function like a family again and come to terms with the loss of Angie. After Les has a close call at sea and Marlene confronts Bill, they reconsider their future together. Magariel effectively portrays Neverland as a wild place populated by lost souls, stripped in his words of "the illusion that the world has been conquered, charted, angled for human need." Downbeat and atmospheric, this psychological drama gets the job done. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (Aug.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A troubled couple journeys through despair and compulsion as they struggle with loss. After the accidental death of their young daughter two years ago, Les and Marlene's marriage has foundered. Les seeks respite from his grief in drug use and long stints as a commercial fisherman in an unnamed region of the Northeastern U.S., while Marlene befriends sex workers in the hope of creating a therapeutic maternal role for herself. The two have effectively abandoned one another without formally separating, and the story charts their eventual confrontation with the trauma they have been unable to accept. A notable strength of the work is the engaging backdrop it provides of maritime culture in a declining town. There are consistently sharp and memorable descriptions of land and sea and of the ecological disruptions which form a counterpart to the human world (communities of horseshoe crabs, red-winged blackbirds, and American bullfrogs endure their own systemic challenges here). The author clearly knows this world well; the daily lives of those in the fishing trade, at work and at home, are rendered with a strong sense of authenticity. Several sections that document the routine dangers, professional tensions, and economic realities faced on a scallop boat are particularly gripping. Less successful are the rather stale scenes and occasionally implausible dialogue charting the psychological mechanics of Les and Marlene's failing relationship or Marlene's interactions with Josie, her ersatz daughter, and the pimp who eventually reclaims the girl. The novel is written in a style that oscillates, a little awkwardly, between brisk realism and a sometimes-strained poeticism: "He stares straight ahead, eyes glittering and indignant....Music floats pendulously through the apartment and the tired night sighs with a dry wheeze." Nevertheless, beyond these distractions, the vision of a coastal region and its cultural milieu offered here is often poignant. A bracing story of grieving, coping, and reaching for the terms of recovery. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
