The Light Between Oceans

On tap for book club next week is the best-seller The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman. This story takes place in early 20th Century Australia with a lighthouse keeper and his wife. After Lizzie has several miscarriages, she hears the cries of a baby, and she and Tom find a boat washed up on shore with a dead man and a live infant. Against Tom's sense of right, Lizzie convinces him to keep the baby without reporting the incident.

I know that we will have lots to discuss at book club, but it will be mostly about the circumstances in the book - what is best for a child raised by foster parents who has a chance to go back to her biological parents. We will also talk about the foibles of the characters. We may talk a little bit about the style of the book, but I have to say that, like many first novels, this one leaves a little to be desired. One thing, the writer occasionally slips into the present tense, but it is totally unclear to me why. The pacing seems a little off. It feels, in some ways, like a musical. You know, the plot advances a little, and then there is a song which seems a little long and dwells on one particular emotion, and finally, the plot gets to move a a little more.

This book seems to fall in the category of fiction, but not literature. That's a pretty big category these days.