- Hardcover: 376 pages
- Publisher: Cormorant Books (Jun 24 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1896951856
- ISBN-13: 978-1896951850
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,625,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
Berth is the story of thirty-something Willa's flight from a military marriage to the romance of life with Hugh, a lightkeeper on an island in Halifax Harbour. Set in 1987, the story begins with Willa's move to the nearby base, where her husband Charlie works aboard the Sea King helicopters. Charmed by Hugh's lifestyle, Willa moves in with him, taking her ten-year-old son, Alex. Hugh's job is endangered by the encroaching automation of the lighthouses, but he clings to his way of life — despite suspicions that the house in which he lives and which contains the light is contaminated by the mercury in the light, an occupational hazard. From the outset, the affair is complicated by Willa's motherhood, and the island, once a remote paradise, soon reveals itself as the military's dumping grounds. The reality of life there sets in, posing a threat not just to romance, but to Willa's sanity. The novel explores the human propensity to seek greener pastures, and, by turn, to suffer the dangers of the status quo. It's about idealism — the purity of love and nature, and their defilement, and the survival of both, however diminished, in a fallen world.
From the Publisher
"The bleakness of Willa's life as wife and mother has more to do with Willa than the essential facts of being a military wife, and Charlie is not a bad man. But with no outlet for passion and no sense of any possible change in her marriage, Willa easily falls victim to her own empty heart. It's not a good situation, but it's understandable given the boundaries of her life. And the fact that she eloquently reveals all those conflicting and volatile needs is a testament to Carol Bruneau's considerable empathy and skill." The Globe and Mail
"Berth is a novel about taking chances with one's heart and what happens when you cast off the present for a questionable future. It's about self-deception, dependency and how change does not always mean a chance at a new life. The emotions in the novel are raw ones, the writing empathetic and skilled. A Nova Scotia novel with a difference, Berth is a winner." The Sun Times
"It's a story about lust. It's about choice in a dark world. It's about people who are unwilling or unable to bear the costs of their choices - a world where light falls nonetheless from unexpected sources." Metcalfe's Newsletter
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Carol Bruneau's Berth,
By Serendipity (Toronto) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Berth (Hardcover)
This book is art, one of those stories where the landscape describes and reflects the main character. Even if you don't like it, you won't easily forget it.Willa and her son, Alex (whom everyone calls "Sonny"), are constantly on the move, following her husband who works as a helicopter mechanic on various military bases. He's an absentee father - when he comes home in the evening he just watches tv or spends hours in the basement, alone. And because Willa is always being uprooted, she has no firm friends and lives in isolation. Now in Halifax, Willa's eye is caught by the sax player at the New Year's Eve party for the Forces, and a few days later bumps into him at the supermarket and then at a Tim Hortons. Perhaps it's a simple matter of a lonely woman seeking companionship and appreciation, but Willa is attracted to Hugh with a kind of 'young lover's blush'. He lives on a small island and mans the coast's lighthouse. It's not long before Willa decides to leave husband Charlie and takes Sonny with her to live with Hugh on the island. It's a wild, weather-cursed place, with an underground, disused bunker left over from the days when the military used it. Dead bodies - 'jumpers' from the bridge - wash up on the shore. The mercury in the light seems to be making Hugh sick. And Willa suspects Hugh's friend Wayne was involved in the disappearance of the previous lighthouse keeper's daughter. Willa is not a character instantly sympathetic. At times her apparent lack of assertion and confidence is frustrating, and the mystery of the missing girl is never quite explained. Lighthouses pop up in many books, often for symbolic purposes, but in Berth it takes on a more sinister darkness. This is a novel of harsh, gritty reality, peopled with lonely, often unlikable characters, yet it's these qualities, and the oftimes ghostly tone, that makes this book worth reading.
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