My sixth read with the Literary Wives online book club (see also Kay’s and Naomi’s reviews), and favourite so far!
{SPOILERS}
Amity Gaige’s fourth novel, Sea Wife (2020), places the protagonists’ relationship in the ultimate pressure cooker: a small sailboat where they will live and travel with their two young children – Sybil, 7, and George, 2 – for one year. Michael and Juliet Partlow’s marriage was in trouble even before they set off for Panama in the yacht Juliet. The voyage seems equal parts second chance and doomed swan song.
Narration alternates between the spouses, as Juliet in the present day sits in a closet reading excerpts from Michael’s ship’s logbook. The latter are in bold font and right-aligned to distinguish them, though his voice would be enough to do so: Juliet is a cynical poet and failed PhD candidate, while Michael is a commonsense financier. Issues of money and politics have come between them. But Juliet’s trauma from childhood sexual abuse and subsequent estrangement from her mother, who disbelieved her, is the greater problem.
Gaige has rendered these two voices very effectively, and maintains tension about what will happen when the Partlows leave Colombia for Jamaica and storms brew. Early on, Michael is warned that changing a boat’s name is bad luck, and it doesn’t take long to confirm that maritime superstition. Michael may think he’s doing it as a sweet tribute to his wife, but you have to wonder if he’s actually replacing her, or admitting that he’s lost her in real life.
Enhancing the epistolary nature, Gaige includes transcripts from an interview and some of Sybil’s therapy sessions (in which she sounds too young; would a seven-year-old seriously say “loveded” as a past participle?), fragments of Juliet’s unfinished dissertation on Anne Sexton, and so on. I think I would have omitted the final section of documents, though. Still, this was a darn good read: literary but suspenseful, and fitting the Literary Wives brief perfectly for its claustrophobic focus on a marriage. (Birthday gift from my wish list) 
The main question we ask about the books we read for Literary Wives is:
What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?
A marriage changes a lot over the years. A project embarked on with the best of intentions can falter for any number of reasons. A person you once thought you could rely on might let you down. I feel Juliet internalized impossibly high standards for an ideal wife and mother that set her up for failure – it must be difficult for someone who has been a victim to do anything but go through life wounded.
Both protagonists explicitly reflect on their marriage and acknowledge that they have not known how to love or be there for each other, and so have felt alone.
Juliet: “I realized that the loneliness was not new at all. That, in fact, I had been lonely for a long time. Because my husband and I did not know each other. We did not know how to help each other or work together. And yet our fates were bound. By a theory. I mean our marriage. The arrangement was illogical.”
Michael: “Have I lied to her? Sure. I lied to her the moment I represented myself as someone she could count on for a lifetime. … We can’t seem to love each other in the same way at the same time.”
Next book: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell in December (a reread for me)
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
This sounds like a very bad idea…
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What, sailing around the world with two children and very little experience? Definitely! 😉
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And being stuck in a sailboat with anybody, let alone spouse you are having difficulties with!
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You’ve made this sound thoughtful and well-realised. But I don’t think this sounds for me at the moment. Shoving me onto a sailing boat for an indefinite period would undoubtedly have me falling out with anyone with whom I came into contact: in between periods of vomiting that is.
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I’m not a good sailor either. This is the last thing I would undertake!
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Great review! I read this book several years ago and really enjoyed it!
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Thanks! I’ll be interested to try more by Gaige.
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I haven’t read anything else by this author either and would be interested in reading more. 🙂
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Wonderful review, but this scenario sounds absolutely horrific! 😂 The quotations you shared do sound very thoughtful, though, so I’d probably like the writing.
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Boats are pretty much always a bad idea if you ask me. I thought the writing was fantastic. I’ll have to look into what else Gaige has written.
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Hmm, I don’t know about the impossibly high standards. Michael sure didn’t seem to come through for her when she was suffering from post-partum depression. Leaving her alone with the kids is not a fix for that. So, I didn’t really get that impression, but Naomi also remarked about her fault-finding. This is what I get for reading the book too far ahead, because I don’t remember it well enough.
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I didn’t mention the postpartum depression; that’s definitely a key piece.
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Yes, I think so.
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Much as I enjoy sailing, what a nightmare scenario! And with two young children, even worse.
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For sure!
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“Michael may think he’s doing it as a sweet tribute to his wife, but you have to wonder if he’s actually replacing her, or admitting that he’s lost her in real life.” — I love this line! It does feel very much like that. He’s given up on being happy at home, so why not do something he loves? Bonus if she likes it, too!
I also found the writing very thoughtful. I had a lot of passages noted, but narrowed it down to a couple.
I didn’t mention this in my review, but I also found the ‘after’ part at home with her mother interesting.
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Yes, the relationship with her mother, especially in the aftermath of the childhood abuse, was fascinating.
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I know how to sail but I choose not to. And I already spend 24/7 with my husband thanks to him working from home but at least I can get away from him in our fairly large house! What a terrible idea for a marriage but a great idea for a novel.
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Ah, I didn’t realize Matthew was at home all day, too! Chris and I had a year or so of that during the pandemic. It was a challenge, though we enjoyed hot lunches together most days. He still works 1-2 days a week from home these days. It’s a nice balance as we can sometimes have walks and meals together but I also get dedicated quiet work time.
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Yes, he went that during the pandemic (and changed his role so was having meetings all day, every day). He did go back to the office one day a week for a bit but renegotiated his contract so he was remote only then they closed the office anyway. He has fewer meetings again now and we’re about to renovate some of the house so he has a (soundproofed) office on the top floor and we get our sitting room back …
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We have separate offices on the first floor separated by a landing. He’s not often in meetings so I can usually cope!
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I know this is a long-ago post but I just finished this book and I’m wondering if someone can tell me if I missed a section? This is concerning Michael’s illness. I read the part where he is being moved onto the power boat to rush him to Kingston. Juliet and Sybil are staying on the sailboat. And then…they’re back in CT. Nothing at all about getting to Jamaica and/or learning what happened to Michael…? I found out later what ultimately happened when she briefly alluded to it in a sentence about something else. I knew he had dengue fever but I would have thought she would tell us about sailing to and arriving in Jamaica. Where Michael and his mother would already have arrived…and tell us what happened.
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Hi Sherri, sorry — after 14 months I’ve not retained any details beyond what I mention in my review.
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