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Marine Life
In these seamlessly interwoven stories Linda Svendsen charts with tenderness and devastating accuracy the longings, pleasures, and terrors of belonging to a family. Through the watchful and sometimes astonished eyes of Adele Nordstrom, we see her chaotic working-class home in her mother, June, a cocktail pianist who never stops believing in the redemptive power of another marriage, and who soothes a frightened daughter by playing "Away in a Manger" on her back; and her brother Ray, the roving charmer. And there's Adele herself, who as a child will look unsparingly at the failures of her elders, and as a grownup will find herself helplessly repeating them
165 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 23, 2020
Linda Svendsen made a splash with her debut collection of linked stories, Marine Life.
Spare, elliptical, funny and unsentimental, Svendsen's stories concern the members of an eccentric Vancouver family, the Nordstroms.
Youngest daughter Adele is the narrator who, over the course of the book, rises above her working-class origins to become a Manhattan academic. Along the way, she gives us glimpses into the lives of her family: her alcoholic brother, who drifts through life like a falling leaf; her two sisters, who marry too young and are forever unhappy; her estranged father, who hardly talks but who weeps at the opera; her energetic stepfather; and finally her mother, who plays cocktail piano and believes that a wedding ring is the answer to all life's problems.
"There are no happy marriages, only unexamined ones," says one of Svendsen's characters, riffing on both Tolstoy and Socrates.
Svendsen doesn't flinch from examining lives and marriages with clear-eyed wisdom and honesty.
Spare, elliptical, funny and unsentimental, Svendsen's stories concern the members of an eccentric Vancouver family, the Nordstroms.
Youngest daughter Adele is the narrator who, over the course of the book, rises above her working-class origins to become a Manhattan academic. Along the way, she gives us glimpses into the lives of her family: her alcoholic brother, who drifts through life like a falling leaf; her two sisters, who marry too young and are forever unhappy; her estranged father, who hardly talks but who weeps at the opera; her energetic stepfather; and finally her mother, who plays cocktail piano and believes that a wedding ring is the answer to all life's problems.
"There are no happy marriages, only unexamined ones," says one of Svendsen's characters, riffing on both Tolstoy and Socrates.
Svendsen doesn't flinch from examining lives and marriages with clear-eyed wisdom and honesty.
September 23, 2008
Like most self-respecting Canadians, I turn up my nose at Canadian fiction (and don't even get me started on Canadian movies. Shudder). But lately I've been wondering: is my aversion just a classic colonial reflex, or does Canadian literature genuinely suck?
In a spirit of civic-minded reappraisal, then, I've been going back to the national canon, such as it is. Hence, Marine Life, which, I'm happy to report, doesn't suck. In fact, it's really quite admirably competent (to feint with damning praise). It's one of those interlinked story collections, with each successive piece throwing a little more light on the ramified dysfunction of a blue-collar family in Vancouver, so that by the end you've got a pretty clear picture of just how awful everybody's life has turned out to be.
My only problem with Marine Life is the problem I have with most Canadian fiction: namely, it exemplifies a certain literary Presbyterianism, according to which heaven is to be attained by means of small renunciations. So, no fancy rhetorical stuff, no formal shenanigans narrative-wise, and no humour to speak of, either. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure Presbyterianism is the right analogy, doctrinally-speaking, but you know what I mean.)
It occurs to me that I'm basically dissing the whole noble tradition of soft-core Chekhovian realism, as practiced by Munro, Gallant et al. So maybe I'm the one with the issues here. I don't know. I just hope nobody reads this back home.
In a spirit of civic-minded reappraisal, then, I've been going back to the national canon, such as it is. Hence, Marine Life, which, I'm happy to report, doesn't suck. In fact, it's really quite admirably competent (to feint with damning praise). It's one of those interlinked story collections, with each successive piece throwing a little more light on the ramified dysfunction of a blue-collar family in Vancouver, so that by the end you've got a pretty clear picture of just how awful everybody's life has turned out to be.
My only problem with Marine Life is the problem I have with most Canadian fiction: namely, it exemplifies a certain literary Presbyterianism, according to which heaven is to be attained by means of small renunciations. So, no fancy rhetorical stuff, no formal shenanigans narrative-wise, and no humour to speak of, either. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure Presbyterianism is the right analogy, doctrinally-speaking, but you know what I mean.)
It occurs to me that I'm basically dissing the whole noble tradition of soft-core Chekhovian realism, as practiced by Munro, Gallant et al. So maybe I'm the one with the issues here. I don't know. I just hope nobody reads this back home.
June 2, 2014
A nicely crafted collection of linked short stories.
May 22, 2024
Amazingly good. I bought this never having heard of the title or author, I do not remember where, because the graphic design was really excellent (which means someone loves it dearly) and I liked the title, which reminds me of myself. The chapters follow time in a haphazard way through the life of our narrator, Adele, as she grows up in Vancouver and moves around - including an interesting brief section living with the Inuit. Adele's intelligence shine through these stories of her relationships and those of her family members, but it doesn't help her avoid screwing up, sometimes in her mother's footsteps, sometimes all on her own. The climax is heartbreaking.
The novel asks 'what is success?' in love and relationships in a very tough but insightful way.
4.5
The novel asks 'what is success?' in love and relationships in a very tough but insightful way.
4.5
October 2, 2019
Brilliant stories with oftentimes sparse but striking language. The author is able to describe minor memories or sensations in a way that perfectly captures their essence. For example, these few lines transported me to my 5th grade self: "Boys would truly like her. Probably even Mike Beckett, whom I respected as a speller, revered as a short love god, and who'd hit me with a rock in a snowball back in February."
January 25, 2025
Marine Life offers eight interrelated stories about Adele Nordstrom, her half-sisters and brother, their families, her mother’s three marriages and her own. It seems that each unhappy branch of a Vancouver working class family is indeed unhappy in its own way. Adele may be a bit smarter than the rest of them, but she’s incapable of trusting a partner. Still, divorce isn’t the worst fate, and she doesn’t have to stay in Vancouver.
July 27, 2025
Liked this more than expected, as I literally just haphazardly picked a random book off my shelf, and it appears to be pretty much unknown. I thought the stories were very moving, quite perfectly encapsulating an often unhappy family still filled with love in spite of their many issues. Nothing groundbreaking, but just solid literary fiction.
February 28, 2022
A perfect book. Following through from the voice of a child to a mature and stricken and experience-wizened voice, anecdotes of being a person in a family all somehow marine adjacent. I can’t stop recommending it to everyone.
July 28, 2020
Depressing. The characters are so flawed, no lessons are learned. No happy endings. Quick read.
July 28, 2020
really enjoyed the narrator's evolution thru these stories.
September 18, 2025
i don’t want to say anything i just want to sit quietly and think about this and maybe shed one tear.
April 9, 2025
i wish this story was for me, but it wasn’t. while i did end up getting into it, the short story construction and timeline hopping had me confused and wandering with the characters.
November 29, 2012
A series of linked stories about a poor family in Vancouver with characters taken from childhood to young adulthood.
March 31, 2016
Reread it just to see a master at work. Buy it read it.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews