Tide Road

by Valerie Compton

When Stella disappears, leaving her toddler and husband behind, her mother Sonia, a widowed farm wife and former lighthouse keeper, struggles to face the possibility that her daughter may not have slipped through the ice. She may have been pushed. In a intensely memorable narrative with the deceptive pull of an undertow, Sonia's past, a flotsam of lost dreams, bruised hopes, buried love, wells up to meet her. Confronted with her own history of choices and failures, Sonia is compelled to revise her perception of her daughter's life and dramatically change the way she lives her own. Compton is a deft draughtsman of character, whose powers of description, timing, and astounding revelation coalesce into a splendidly nuanced account of the unguessed-at legacies of a life shaped by choices.

Genres: Canada, Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Born and raised on Prince Edward Island, Valerie Compton now lives in Halifax, where she writes and teaches fiction writing.

Reviews

[Tina(why is GR limiting comments?!!) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tells the story of a mother's grown child who has gone missing and is presumed dead. This event shakes the mother and as she battles a deep depression makes her question her life and how she has led it....interesting story that kept my attention though was a bit slow moving. A CanLit book set in Prince Edward Island.

[Janet Berkman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel grabbed at my heart. A woman mourns the disappearance of an adult daughter and the book intertwines narrative from the mother's past and present as she struggles to come to terms with this tragedy.

Set mainly in the 1960s on Prince Edward Island, Valerie Compton describes island life with fondness and care. Life is speeding up with the coming of colour television and direct-dial telephone service, but the deep emotional threads in this novel take time to untangle. Alternately meditative and jarring, this story is difficult to put down. Highly recommended.

Thanks to the publisher Goose Lane for my copy.

[Abcdarian · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Better for people who like exploring psychological pathways rather than physical ones. I prefer a bit more clarity & actual story, plus I hoped to enjoy a PEI setting, but it didn't resonate for me.

[Michelle Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't think I was EVER going to finish this one! I found the flashbacks slightly confusing and the rest of the writing long and drawn out. The story didn't seem to go anywhere.

[Aren Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! It is a beautiful study in hope, loss, missed connections, womanhood, motherhood and domestic violence. The very universal theme of “what if I had taken a different path?”is delicately explored herein.
Compton packs a lot into these 240 pages and PEI is brought to life in the 1940s and 1960s as a character of its own with her gorgeous descriptions, powerful word choice and colourful metaphors.
Highly recommend. I will be looking to read more written by this author.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappearance is at the heart of Tide Road, a poignant and accomplished first novel set in 1960's rural Prince Edward Island. In the opening pages Sonia learns that her adult daughter Stella is missing. No body is found, but the theory put forward by police is that Stella drowned after falling through soft ice on the river. Sonia is not convinced. Her theory is that Stella ran away from home to escape the abuse and neglect and relentless criticism of her husband Evvie. She concentrates her energy on finding proof of this. But Stella's disappearance also shakes something loose within Sonia, and she begins looking back on the time when, as a girl in her late teens, in the 1940s, she met Max, the man who became her husband, and Pete, a gentle soul who after a single romantic encounter retreated from her life, though he never really left it. The narrative proceeds along dual lines, and we see that with the loss of Pete, Sonia, swallowed up by a life in which Max made all the choices for them both, essentially became a missing person herself. As she moves closer to the truth about Stella, she also moves closer to uncomfortable and unflattering truths about herself. Tide Road could be characterized as dark. It deals with disturbing issues such as abuse and suppressed memories of violence. But Valerie Compton's close examination of Sonia's past and present is also triumphant because we learn that the loss of self, and self-worth, can be overcome. In this fine novel Compton creates a vivid and compelling narrative that hinges on memory and family and the necessity of never giving up or giving in.

[Jennifer]

Recieved my first reads copy the other day. It came very quickly! And I am only a bit into it, but so far its great :) I love that it takes place on PEI

[Janna Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I think part of my problem with this book is that the only other books I've read that were set on PEI are L.M. Montgomery's books, where the Island is almost like a separate character. In most of her books, you couldn't be anywhere but the Island; it's an integral part of the story. So subconsciously, I think I was expecting the same thing from Tide Road. However, had it not been for the heading that told you where each part of the story took place, I would have never known it was PEI. Which in and of itself, isn't a problem. It was just my expectations that sort of ruined it.

And then there was the story itself. I didn't dislike it. But I kept expecting it to grab me, and it never did. It felt so disjointed, and very slow at times. Which may have been intentional on the part of the author, to mimic the way the characters feel after Stella disappears. But it didn't exactly work for me. I kept expecting the flashbacks to reveal something incredibly important to the main story line, but they never did. Even the "big reveal" that Max was abusive and Sonia had repressed the memories didn't feel as significant as it should have. I guarantee that every reader out there already knew that Max was abusive. And I guess the connection was supposed to be to how Evvie must have abused Stella, but again, that wasn't a surprise.

I don't know, I guess this just felt like the kind of book that should have surprised me somehow, but it didn't. Turns out, everything happened exactly the way everyone thought it had all along. The main story was Sonia (and the rest of the family) coming to grips with what had happened. Which is a good story, if I could have just stopped waiting for the reveal (which never came) and instead immersed myself in the story that was actually there. I'm not sure if that's my fault (for the expectations I brought to the book), or the author's (for the way she told the story), but regardless, it left me underwhelmed.

[Annick MacAskill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvel.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Because memory is pliable, isn't it? It depends on where you start, on the details you attend to, and on the ones you let slip away."

This quote nicely sums up the story of Sonia, a mother who sinks into the depths of depression while grieving her eldest daughter and the life she might have led. As the story unfolds, we realize that Sonia has grappled with postpartum depression in the past, as well as suppressed memories due to abuse and trauma. There are many passages dealing with vision and blindness; perception and avoidance; clarity and distortion; art and science -- both literally and figuratively: "Our compliance operates like a visual illusion, she decided, and the picture deceives unless we question it. The ease of status quo is seductive. And the mind is too accommodating, indulgent, untrustworthy."

Because of this lifelong despondency, Sonia's memories are very confused, disorienting, and unhappy -- the dictionary definition of the unreliable narrator. Her children are likewise dealing with trauma, in very different ways. (Women were left with very little choices in rural Prince Edward Island in the forties, fifties, and sixties.)

This story is extremely sad but the writing is beautiful. I was rooting for Sonia the entire time, and although I think positive thoughts toward her happiness, I left the story with a heavy heart. Very thought provoking and not an easy read!

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I love her writing style, all of the emotions and feelings she brought up... the ending... it was a wonderful book, that fortunately I was able to sit and read for a long time (from Kamloops BC to Edmonton AB) because I didn't want to put it down :)

The only thing that wasn't ideal for me is the jumping around in times, that seems to be a popular trend right now and it drives me crazy, but it wasn't a deal breaker.

I think this book could easily win the Giller Prize in 2011 :)

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to now have read something set in Prince Edward Island other than Anne of Green Gables! The sense of place and time was beautifully done in this story set primarily in 1965, with flashbacks to the 1940s, and a hasty tidying up in modern day. Very much a Canadian literary novel, with themes of loss, memory, etc, with people speaking meditatively if sometimes a bit improbably ("'You cannot hold a thing like water back,' he said", and so on). I thought the flash-forward ending was unnecessary, but mostly quite enjoyed the rest, other than the slight sense of CanLit déjà vu.

[Sweetmongoose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a compelling narrative told in compelling prose. I liked the way the narrator's "spacy" frame of mind (due to the shock of her grief over her missing adult daughter) is conveyed in the style of the prose and that when she starts to "wake up" the type of narration changes and key information, earlier supressed, about characters and events starts to emerge. The book takes place primarily on Prince Edward Island in 1965 with a significant portion taking place in 1941.

[Scrappy16 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this as a free book and am thrilled that I did. I plan to pass it on to friends to read. A story of a mother's struggle to cope with the loss of a child, her own struggles and those of her other children.

[Jaime Wakelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book that I have read with a PEI setting. Valerie Compton is a great author with amazing details. With every word I could envision myself in the historic setting. The lighthouse is one I'll never forget and I can't wait to read whatever Valerie comes up with next!

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

An okay read. Not one that I would readily recommend to other readers, but I didn't dislike it so much that I abandonned it before finishing it.

[Mary Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Amazing really.

[Fran]

Loved this book with its PEI setting. Beautiful, haunting, narrative.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost from the beginning, I find Sonia really annoying.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it!
An honest look at a life lived including the 'what ifs' and roads not taken. Extremely relatable.