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A review by categj
February by Lisa Moore
5.0
During a violent storm out in the North Atlantic, on Valentine’s Day in 1982, the Ocean Ranger, a self-propelled, semi-submersible oil rig, was hit with a huge wave and damaging the deck. The rig sank the next day, and all 84 men aboard perished.
Lisa Moore’s novel, February, has at its centre this real-life tragedy — how this event impacts the families and the community of the small town in Newfoundland.
This novel is a beautifully written story of death, loss, love, memory and grief. The story weaves back and forth between past and present, with all threads either coming from or leading towards the tragic event of 1982, when Helen lost her husband, Cal, to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Even though grief is a highly unique and individualistic emotion, Ms. Moore expresses Helen’s grieving process in a way that we can all relate to in poignant and personal ways. Helen’s feelings and state of mind ring true. The winding and meandering narration, flowing from Helen’s present (in 2008) to the time of the tragedy (in 1982) and the time before and after the event, feel familiar, the way our thoughts travel back and forth remembering times and places in our own past and present.
Through Helen’s eyes and her feelings, we feel the impact of Cal’s death on the family — their three daughters and, particularly, their son, John, who grows up wary of relationships and terrified of water.
Water, of course, plays an important part in this novel and Moore uses water in various descriptive ways in the book. Boiling kettles, an overflowing bathtub, rain, a mirror breaks in the honeymoon suite — it "buckled, or bucked, or curled like a wave and splashed onto the carpet and froze there into hard, jagged pieces", an orgasm "like a spill of icy water" subtly remind us of that fateful night in 1982.
Lisa Moore’s novel February is passionate, beautiful, sad but at the same time, uplifting. A story about love and loss, and the strength that we find within to carry on, to remember and to live.
I loved this book and can’t wait to read some of Ms. Moore’s other work.
Lisa Moore’s novel, February, has at its centre this real-life tragedy — how this event impacts the families and the community of the small town in Newfoundland.
This novel is a beautifully written story of death, loss, love, memory and grief. The story weaves back and forth between past and present, with all threads either coming from or leading towards the tragic event of 1982, when Helen lost her husband, Cal, to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Even though grief is a highly unique and individualistic emotion, Ms. Moore expresses Helen’s grieving process in a way that we can all relate to in poignant and personal ways. Helen’s feelings and state of mind ring true. The winding and meandering narration, flowing from Helen’s present (in 2008) to the time of the tragedy (in 1982) and the time before and after the event, feel familiar, the way our thoughts travel back and forth remembering times and places in our own past and present.
Through Helen’s eyes and her feelings, we feel the impact of Cal’s death on the family — their three daughters and, particularly, their son, John, who grows up wary of relationships and terrified of water.
Water, of course, plays an important part in this novel and Moore uses water in various descriptive ways in the book. Boiling kettles, an overflowing bathtub, rain, a mirror breaks in the honeymoon suite — it "buckled, or bucked, or curled like a wave and splashed onto the carpet and froze there into hard, jagged pieces", an orgasm "like a spill of icy water" subtly remind us of that fateful night in 1982.
Lisa Moore’s novel February is passionate, beautiful, sad but at the same time, uplifting. A story about love and loss, and the strength that we find within to carry on, to remember and to live.
I loved this book and can’t wait to read some of Ms. Moore’s other work.