Susanna Daniel (1)

This is a compelling read, in part because of the hints dropped casually like pebbles in the ocean and the oppressive feeling-- not unlike the humidity -- that something bad will happen. We learn that Georgia and her husband Graham are headed south for a fresh start, moving from IL to Miami, FL where her Dad and his wife Lidia are. We don’t know why they need a fresh start. We learn that their 3-1/2 yr. old son Frankie no longer speaks, but we don’t know why. We learn that Georgia show more suffers from insomnia and Graham suffers from parasomnia, a more drastic sleep condition that includes sleepwalking, so he avoids sleep, but we don’t know the toll this takes on the family. And as narrator, Georgia drops in a lot of “if I’d know then….” type of comments, so of course we want to find out where it is all headed. The fresh start includes a new job for Graham at Rosential/U of Miami using his marine physics degree; he eventually heads offshore for a length of time for work. For Georgia it is to be errand-runner to Charlie Hicks, an artist-hermit who lives in Stiltsville, about a mile out to sea in a small house built on pilings in the ocean (true place!). Frankie accompanies her on these runs and both he and Charlie benefit. For Frankie it is a new pediatrician who doesn’t accept his mutism, and also a speech pathologist who helps him make a breakthrough. The little family lives on a houseboat, moored right off her parents’ house in a canal. Haunting all this dynamic is Georgia’s dead mother, a cancer victim, which is all brought closer to mind by proximity. You can kind of see the storm brewing here…. and it all culminates in Hurricane Andrew, which gives the story a more definitive setting. Clever interplay of characters, thoughtful prose, beautiful ocean imagery and a captivating plot line as you try to determine what is lurking just below the surface. Cue the Jaws music. show less

Children define you as delicately as butterfly wings and can be as menacing as a nightmare, especially if you can't wake up from the nightmare. Everyone goes through life looking for normal, striving to live, and yet only in doing so can be rewarded with disappointment and death. While not a page-turning with anticipation, there's no doubt it could be an actual memoir, which is what makes it so appealing. Our choices have consequences, and memory. Sometimes the memory is harder to live with show more than the consequence. show less

The best and worst thing about Sea Creatures is how utterly realistic it is. Ms. Daniels brilliantly captures the full range of emotion that comes with parenthood – the complete devotion, the frustrations, the constant worry, the fear, the love, and so much more. Georgia’s worries are every reader’s worries, so strong is the evocative language, just as her failures resonate a bit too close for comfort as they provide a stark reminder of just what can happen in spite of one’s best show more attempts. Every mother knows that it is impossible to protect her child from all possible ills, but that does not stop one from trying. It makes for a beautiful story, if uncomfortable at times because of its accuracy.

Sea Creatures does not just shine from the emotional depiction of parenting; it also showcases the ambiguity of real life. Ms. Daniel does not use omniscient narrators, so that a reader only knows what Georgia knows and must speculate the rest – just like in real life. It is frustrating but so effective in establishing uncertainty and suspense.

Another item of brilliance is how Ms. Daniel does not let the hurricane overshadow the drama occurring among her characters. It would be all too easy to let the hurricane become the story’s focal point. Instead, it is nothing more than the backdrop in front of which the rest of the action occurs. This deliberate lack of emphasis on a life-altering storm solidifies the character-driven action of the story and again mirrors life, as Georgia’s focus is not on the weather but rather solely on her son. When it comes to a mother’s love and worry, not even Mother Nature’s fury is a distraction.

Sea Creatures is a haunting, thought-provoking story about motherhood and marriage, the compromises we make for spouse and/or child, and the consequences of them. Ms. Daniels’ superb writing personifies every mother’s fears through Georgia’s own struggles to do right by her child while balancing her own happiness. It is an amazing story that will evoke a torrent of emotions and leave a reader breathless. show less

A child changes everything. Since I've had children, I've gotten a bit more fearful about things that carry any risk, real or just perceived. As the character in Susanna Daniel's novel Sea Creatures, says, there's more at stake now. When you have a young child, you think things through more even if you weren't a reckless sort before. Someone else is dependent on you and you act accordingly. I first read Susanna Daniel's Stiltsville two years ago so when I saw that she had a new novel out show more about a mother who is faced with the choice of saving her young son or of saving her husband, I was immediately intrigued.

Georgia Quillian is married to Graham. They met when Georgia, who suffers from insomnia, went to a sleep clinic for help with her condition. Graham was also in "Detention" at the sleep clinic only his problem was parasomnia, which goes far beyond insomnia. And so these two people who could not sleep slowly created a life together. Georgia started a college counseling business and Graham was a professor at Northwestern. They lived in his family's cottage on a lake outside of Chicago and eventually Georgia gave birth to son Frankie. But life was not rosy. Graham's condition did not improve. Georgia's business was failing. Her mother died of cancer. Three year old Frankie stopped speaking. And then something happened with Graham because of the parasomnia, an incident so large that it made the papers and guaranteed that he'd never get tenure, pushing him out of his job. So when he is offered another job tracking weather patterns with a scientific institute in Miami, Georgia's hometown, the family pulls up stakes to go. If they're not entirely optimistic about the move, they are at least slightly hopeful that this will be a new start.

Not wanting to actually move into the house with Georgia's father, a professional musician, and her kind, motherly stepmother, Georgia and Graham buy a small, shabby houseboat and dock it at Harvey and Lidia's, giving them the illusion of their own space. But Georgia finds she is at loose ends on the tiny Lullaby so when Lidia suggests that she run errands and become a sort of personal assistant to a reclusive artist who lives out at Stiltsville, Georgia agrees. The professionally successful Charlie, whose wife was a friend of Georgia's late mother and also of her stepmother, draws amazingly intricate line drawings of sea animals. He's banished himself to Stiltsville to stay away from people but he develops a deep and real bond with the selectively mute Frankie and eventually with Georgia as well.

Meanwhile Graham has left on a ship that will be out in Hurricane Alley for weeks tracking weather conditions, leaving Georgia and Frankie behind. And it is only when he is gone that Georgia and Frankie's doctors start to get to the bottom of what has caused Frankie's complete and total silence. This revelation is a gathering storm in Georgia's life, as is her growing attachment to Charlie and her looming decision about Frankie's and her future. Mirroring the inner emotional turmoil and tension is the rising development of Hurricane Andrew far out in the ocean. Both storms will lead to terrible devastation and change Georgia's life forever.

Narrated by Georgia so that everything is from her perspective, the novel jumps from present back to Georgia's past, what made her who she is, and her understanding, as far as she she's able to understand it, of Graham's past and the demons there. Her unspooling of the past also shows her feelings about her parents, how she wants to be as a parent herself, and where she finds Graham's inattentiveness with Frankie frustrating. Daniel has done a good job capturing Georgia's worries, insecurities, and her guilt over any dangers, real or imagined, to which she has exposed Frankie. Her depiction of a mother's all consuming love, the way that the mother of a small child fits the rest of her life around the existence of that one little person, and the way that a marriage already straining can come apart at the seams because of a love and loyalty to the result of that marriage are all spot on. The narrative pacing is deceptively slow with an almost imperceptibly rising tension that culminates in lashing after lashing of breaking storms. The characters are not perfect and they make mistakes but aside from Graham, who is somehow unknowable despite all of Georgia's explanations about him, they are very real and human. There are some gut wrenching moments here and a well done picture of motherly love and protectiveness and all its flaws as well. Sea Creatures is a novel of marriage and motherhood, love and what we owe family, an emotional novel about the choices we make, the compromises we can live with, and what brings us to the breaking point. show less