For the past couple of years I’ve been working on an ensemble piece set in the small coastal town of Seal Cove in Northern California. Seal Cove is a fictionalized version of Moss Beach, where I’ve lived most of my life, combined with neighboring Princeton by the Sea at Pillar Point Harbor, and perhaps a few touches of Del Mar, where I grew up. I’ve lived all but a couple of years in seaside towns and have never used it as a setting for fiction (save for an unpublished novel called Fog Beach). Seal Cove is about life and death and aspirations and disappointments, expectations, surprises, hope and discovery. It’s about the people who live here, or might have lived here. They’re a nice group of people trying to find their way through life. Here is a picture of the real Seal Cove:
And here’s a peek at the cover design for The Seal Cove Theoretical Society:
The cover illustration, “The Celestial Sea,” is by the illustrious Debbie Mumm.
The pandemic came as no great surprise to me. It has always lurked as a possibility, like an earthquake that you know is coming but you just don’t know when. What I didn’t expect was the disruption of supplies, the hoarding of things like toilet paper and sanitizing sprays and wipes, the binge eating, and the increased sales (and presumably consumption) of alcohol. And the economic upheaval. That’s been a shock.
Being sequestered during the pandemic, there is plenty of time to read, which provides both escape and intellectual stimulation in our isolation. I’ve read 18 books through the first five months of 2020. All but two were novels. Like most years, I’m not sticking to any one genre. I’ve read thrillers, mysteries, romantic comedies, romances, horror, and adventure stories. A few were mash-ups of different genres, and a few were straight-up literary fiction (i.e. focused on characters’ interior lives).
The most surprising book I read was a medical thriller called The End of October, by Lawrence Wright. Personally surprising because I never thought I’d read a book about a pandemic during a pandemic. Why would anyone choose immersion rather than escape from a killer virus. Yet I learned more about viruses and epidemiology than I ever knew before, and it was a compulsive page-turner. The amazing thing about the book is that it was written in 2019 and only published in April, yet so much of it anticipates current events. I highly recommend it.
Also this year I read the Jojo Moyes trilogy, Me Before You; After You; and Still Me. My first encounter with Moyes was her book Last Letter From Your Lover. Her characters are always nuanced, the relationships real, and the pacing perfect. She reminds me of a modern-day Jane Austen.
Oona Out of Order, by Margarita Montimore, was captivating and original. — Every New Year’s Eve Oona turns a year older, but she doesn’t live her life sequentially. She may be 19 at 11:59 PM, but at the stroke of midnight, finds herself 51, or 37, or whatever. The book follows her only through a handful of years. My only regret was that it wasn’t longer.
Least surprising, but no less satisfying, was a book of four novellas from Stephen King entitled If It Bleeds. It’s terrific. They’re all good, but my favorites were “The Life of Chuck” and “Rat.”
I’d been looking forward to Robyn Carr’s Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, because I live in the area. Being familiar with the setting colors my review, even though Sunrise on Half Moon Bay is a work of fiction, so artistic-license is accepted and expected. But as a local, some aspects rang jarringly false. For instance, they met at the community pool (there is no community pool), and they go to a movie theater, though there is no local movie theatre. Carr references a snorkel shop, though no one snorkels here because the water is too cold. Beach volleyball is a rarity, etc. In general, it seems like this Half Moon Bay is set at least 50 miles south (around Santa Cruz), or even Santa Barbara.
The publisher might also have stayed truer to the purported setting — the cover illustration shows a woman on a fanciful dock facing the sunrise. Half Moon Bay is on the West Coast. The only east-facing sunrise, due to the odd curve of the coast, occurs in Santa Barbara. Sure, I’m being picky, but when I notice things like this, it takes me out of the story.
That’s okay, I didn’t expect verisimilitude. But nothing in the story depends on, nor is enhanced by, the location. It could have been set anywhere. The book could also have used a better editor. For instance, “Jake was in his midtwenties [sic], Adele still in high school, when he married Mary Ellen.” Yet earlier it was stated that Jake didn’t fall in love with Mary Ellen until Addie went to college.
Now, putting all of my reservations aside, I have to give Carr her due. The crux of this story revolves around the relationships between two sisters born 20 years apart, and the men in their lives. Carr succeeds in giving us complex and believable characters, natural dialogue, and sincere sentiments, with predictable though satisfying resolutions. She reminds me of a female Nicholas Sparks.
About a month ago I became aware of best-selling romance author Robyn Carr through an article in our local paper, The Half Moon Bay Review. She was being interviewed because her latest book, Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, is set here and was about to be released. So, I thought I’d check her out. Online I found that she is a wildly successful and prolific author, with several series of books set in small towns. As my latest novel, The Seal Cove Theoretical Society, is also set at the north end of Half Moon Bay, I’ll be fascinated to see how she frames the local scene. However, since Sunrise on Half Moon Bay was a few weeks from release when the article came out, I decided to try her out by reading the first of a series set in Virgin River, in the mountains north of Mendocino.
In Virgin River, Robyn Carr delivers exactly what you want from a good romance — a love story with believable dialogue, skillful exposition, lovely description, wholesome, and heartwarming characters old enough to have interesting backstories, while serving up some steamy sex on the side. The only fault I can find in it (and many would think this the best part of the book) is that the male protagonist is PERFECT. A young man might learn a lot from this book about what women want in a man. He’s good-looking, tall, strong, polite, protective, understanding, even-tempered, patient, mature, and loving without being overbearing. He’s a good example of what men might aspire to, but he’s just a little too perfect to be real. And his name is — you guessed it — Jack. What is it about the name Jack? At any neighborhood barbecue, you might find a Chris, or Mark, an Archie, a John, a Scott, or a Jerry, Bruce, Brad, or Arthur. But in the romance genre, once the name Jack is dropped, you just know he’s the love interest. Ah, well, that’s a small, nitpicking criticism. If you’re looking for a well-written, predictable, feel-good romance, you can’t go wrong with Virgin River.
In a normal year about 100 people die each day in automobile accidents. With everyone staying home, there will be far fewer accidents.
2) Fewer people commuting means less air pollution.
3) With everyone sheltering in place, family members are getting to know one another better. Board games and card games are making a comeback.
4) People are reading more books to entertain themselves.
5) Since kids are staying home from school, you no longer hear about school shootings.
6) Looked at objectively, human beings are a scourge upon the earth. The fewer of us there are, the less negative impact we’ll have on the planet.
7) The majority of deaths are men. As men are responsible for most of the world’s ills, the fewer men, the less violence, and the fewer wars. The world would be a better place with more women in it. I can say this, as I am a man and I own my failings.
8) The majority of victims of Covid-19 are old, and infirm. It’s a natural culling of the herd of the least productive among us. The positive effect is that losing that demographic takes pressure off the healthcare system and strengthens Social Security. It also frees families from the expense and responsibility of caring for their elderly. Cold? As a witch’s tit, but I can say this because I am a part of that demographic. If we die now with our wits about us, we will at least be spared the fright and indignity of slowly losing our minds as we totter toward the grave. And face it — we all have to get off this merry-go-round sooner or later.
My only concern is for younger victims, who should have most of their lives ahead of them.
I get the feeling we’re living in a Franz Kafka story. Here in San Mateo County we’ve been ordered to “shelter in place,” like sheep in the stockyards. We live in interesting times.
This pandemic, and in particular the world’s response to it, doesn’t seem quite real. We’re surrounded by hysterical pundits shouting impending doom. But the information has the whiff of an unreliable narrator. What are we not being told? This event will no doubt inspire dozens of apocalyptic novels and movies. The question is, after living through it, will anyone want to buy those books or watch those movies? In the meantime, I’ll whistle past the graveyard, write about the world as it was, and try not to contemplate an uncertain future.
Recent Comments