Shreve Anita. Body Surfing

A novel.Body Surfing opens with an evocative description of a beach house and a woman swimming, surfing her body on the ocean’s waves. Anita Shreve’s latest novel picks up on previous themes she has explored — -love, loss, marriage, the ocean — -but the story of Sydney, a young woman who is lost, and finds herself the tutor to a teenage daughter at her family’s summer beach house, is unique and textured in its own right.Sydney has a traumatic past: two marriages-one that ended in divorce and one that left her a widow. The family she lives with has their own troubles, including a youngest daughter who is "slow" and threatens to disappoint her parents’ high hopes that she go to college. These characters are presented in whole, complex portraits, and there’s a strong undercurrent of hope in the way they continue to embrace love and new relationships, despite their flaws.Body Surfing is a slow-moving story that spans three summers, and yet manages to move quickly and deliberately as well. The beach house functions as a character itself, playing a large role in the story and providing the novel with an intoxicating air of summer vacations and sandy feet. Body Surfing would make a great beach book, but it’s also emotionally satisfying enough to stand up to anytime of year.