![]() ![]() To use a marine theme so dominantly is a risky undertaking, fraught with the enticement of cliché: in following a long line of greats from Shakespeare to Melville to Murdoch, Fletcher also adopts the preoccupation of many lesser writers who thrill to the sea's obvious descriptive opportunities. The sea is a constant presence in the book: an obsession, a metaphor, a source of desire and danger. ![]() It is to Amy that this novel is addressed in poignant second-person asides, the use of prolepsis thickening as the story progresses. That's about it, but what carries us along and provides a disturbing undertow is our early knowledge that Moira's younger sister Amy will fall from a rock and lie in a coma. The novel follows Moira Stone from her early days immersed in the landscape of the Pembrokeshire coast to her time at boarding school, her jealousy at the birth of her sister, and her marriage to a man she meets in her teens. A study of loss, regret and the perverse complexities of human love, Oystercatchers is psychologically profound, but at its surface lies a simple tale that eschews the mystery element of its predecessor. ![]()
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