In the years just before the Vietnam War, Barbara Gannon is newly widowed with a brood of children in a Los Angeles suburb. With both epic scope and beautiful minimalism, Shining Sea traces the family lineage from the fallout of World War II through the entirety of Vietnam, across Europe and the Irish Troubles, and into the present day in fewer than 300 pages. The narrative drifts from a central point yet, like its characters, always finds a way to return home.
Anne Korkeakivi (An Unexpected Guest) achieves this ebb and flow by never allowing the Gannons to handle or even think about one thing at a time. Instead, they comically and tragically juggle life's non sequiturs. One of the greatest scenes is near the beginning, when Barbara is hosting her late husband's wake while, at the same time, trying to find her absentminded son who has wandered away from the backyard. Within a few short chapters, this son drifts farther and farther away as his brothers and sisters, in varying degrees, do everything and nothing to keep the family together.
Somehow what both the Gannon family--and readers--ultimately take comfort in is the inevitable forward movement of time. Just like the lives of the Gannon kids, the story moves steadily onward. It seems to say that, no matter what, through war, death and choppy seas, the only way is straight ahead, and perhaps sometime in the future, we may all stand on the same shore together again. --Josh Potter