A Sea Change

by Salamanca J. R.

It is J. R. Salamanca's special gift to create in his novels a world of feeling---in The Lost Country, a pastoral world; in Lilith, a world of fever and dementia; here, a romantic and loving world corrupted by the death of desire.The story of a marriage is told. Michael, still young, looks back---to his passionate courtship of his wife, Margaret, in Washington after the war.; to the ecstatic beginning of their life together (one flesh, one sensibility, one name "Mickey" to each other); to almost blind consummation of his first adultery (with a girl whose animality is in contrast to the Ariel-like fineness he worships in his wife); and finally to an exquisite nightmare summer and the French Mediterranean resort to which he has brought his wife in a desperate attempt to recover what is lost.There, in a lovely coastal town dedicated to pleasure, he falls in with an attractive and worldly society that provides the instruments of catastrophe---the catastrophe toward which his life with Margaret has been spiraling. There is an actress, a fascinating and totally honest woman, with whom he has a violent affair; and there is a young Italian gigolo---at once simple and frighteningly shrewd---who furnishes the unconsciously sought –after coup de grâce to the fading idyll of Michael and Margaret.A Sea Change is about the havoc wrought in marriage by the ebbing of desire, about the impossibility of willing oneself to love---and the ways in which, attempting the impossible, men drift into cruelties of which they would have believed themselves incapable. It is the richest and most ambitious work of a greatly gifted novelist.

512 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 8, 2012

Reviews

[Sue Dounim · Rating 4 out of 5]

[ Review second draft 2025-09-15 ] At 500 pages I thought I'd take my time with it. Obviously something to be savored. 3 days later--with various chores and obligations left undone--book finished!
My entree to Salamanca's works was Lilith, and I read Southern Exposure not long afterwards. I'm seeing a pattern about female antagonists who are "broken" in some way: physically in the case of Southern Exposure's "Sylvie" and Sea Change's "Margaret"; emotionally/mentally in the case of "Lilith".
Before I address my own feelings about this book, a couple personal notes. I went through a period in my life where I was reading vast amounts of Lawrence Durrell. I see echoes of his approach in this book and can't help but wonder if Salamanca was influenced. In my limited experience I see lots of parallels in their style, at least in this book.
The story is framed as a first-person narration. Michael's wife of 12 years, Margaret, leaves him abruptly during their idyllic vacation to the south of France. The couple are childless middle-class Americans who decide that their relationship has curdled or ossified and that a "sea change" might reinvigorate the love and passion they felt in earlier years. For a while things go well, but the influence of other characters infects first Michael, and then his wife, until a cataclysm occurs. The man is left waiting in their home with his job and his cat and a few friends, hoping that one day she might forgive or at least talk about it. But after three years of no contact, he's beginning to wonder if he will ever hear from her again. And on that unsettled and unsettling note the story ends.
I have a confession to make: around page 397 I triumphantly guessed how Salamanca was going to architect the climax. Gwynyth's former lover, jealous and unstable Tessa, was going to learn of Gwynyth's secret affair with Michael, and in her betrayed rage she would tell Margaret of it, to hopefully destroy their marriage and indiscriminately cause as much pain as possible all around. I am pleased and humbled to report that I was as wrong as it is possible to be. Salamanca's solution was much more nuanced, and depended on a certain characteristic of professional, narcissistic Don Juans. Well done!