A review by owenpeak
Star Of The Sea by Joseph O'Connor

4.0

This took me a while to get into but once I saw what O’Connor was trying to do, with the flashbacks of the characters’ lives leading up to the voyage, I could enjoy it a lot more. The characters that were developed (like David, Pius and Mary) felt so vivid and complex, however I wish some of the other characters had more fleshing out seeing at there were 400 pages over which to do so. I’m also conflicted over Dixon as a narrator; I get the wallflower vibe that’s being attempted but he felt too involved to give a completely indiscriminate account of the dramatic events on the boat. Some of the intertextuality (especially the Dickens parts) felt very shoehorned in however the firm rooting of the narrative in time and place was exceedingly well done. Also, the epistolary story telling, especially the use of real documents, really added so much depth to the novel and gives reason for it to be such a highly regarded piece of historical fiction.