Play Book Tag discussion

PBT comments: this could really either be posted in mental health or historical fiction. It's set in the 1920s, and the characters in the book have all been touched by World War I--there are multiple discussions of survivor's guilt and shell-shock.

I've owned a copy of this for years, and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Tom Sherbourne is the lighthouse-keeper on Janus Rock in Australia, where he lives--cut off by some fifty miles--from the town of Partegeuse with his wife, Isabel. Isabel has just suffered her third miscarriage when a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a live baby. Overcome with grief for her own baby, Isabel convinces Tom to let her keep the baby and raise it as their own on Janus.

For obvious reasons, through much of the middle of the novel I felt a huge sense of dread while reading it, since it's obvious that these decisions have and will continue to tear people apart. It was really moving to see the repercussions that the Sherbournes' decisions had on themselves and on others, and you come to feel strongly for all of them. I really liked the writing, and I found the book to be a beautiful kind of sad.