From Powells.com
Discover the books that made our 2022 list.
Staff Pick
Visceral, introspective, and washed through with grief, this little novel is hauntingly beautiful. Freeman's prose is sparse, yet charged with emotion. At its heart, it's the story of a woman learning to put herself back together. Try it if you like Jenny Offill or Rachel Cusk. Recommended By Carrie K., Powells.com
True to the title, author Sara Freeman has structured this novel in small segments that ebb and flow like tides, rolling across the pages and propelling you dreamily through the story of a woman who, after a grave loss, detaches from all structures of her life like a boat pushing out to sea and drifts to a small seaside town. What follows is a delicate and haunting story told as much in the margins as in the prose. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves unconventional forms, poetic prose, and liminal themes in fiction! Recommended By Katie P, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
An intoxicating, compact debut novel by the winner of Columbia's Henfield Prize, Tides is an astoundingly powerful portrait of a deeply unpredictable woman who walks out of her life and washes up in a seaside town.
After a sudden, devastating loss, Mara flees her family and ends up adrift in a wealthy seaside town with a dead cellphone and barely any money. Mired in her grief, Mara detaches from the outside world and spends her days of self-imposed exile scrounging for food and swimming in the night ocean. In her state of emotional extremis, the sea at the town's edge is rendered bleak, luminous, implacable.
As her money runs out and tourist season comes to a close, Mara finds a job at the local wine store. There, she meets Simon, the shop's soft-spoken, lonely owner. Confronted with the possibility of connection with Simon and the slow return of her desires and appetites, the reasons for her flight begin to emerge.
Reminiscent of works by Rachel Cusk, Jenny Offill, and Marguerite Duras, Tides is a spare, visceral debut novel about the nature of selfhood, intimacy, and the private narratives that shape our lives. A shattering and unforgettable debut.
Review
"[B]eautiful and translucent. Mirroring the ebb and flow of water, short paragraphs leave lots of empty spaces on the page, enhancing the emotional gut punches latent in the text, while moments of heightened action run uninterrupted." Booklist, (Starred Review)
Review
"Sara Freeman goes about her business in Tides with such cool composure that I didn't fully register the serious heat of the thing until my eyebrows had started to sizzle. I'm amazed that this is a first novel. There is something very large to be found in this wonderfully compressed work." Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome
Review
"Charismatic….With an intricate narrative and in deceptively simple language, Freeman captures the full extent of loss. Complicated and enchanting, this prismatic examination of emotional endurance is a winner" Publishers Weekly, (Starred Review)
About the Author
Sara Freeman is a Montreal-born writer currently based out of Boston. She graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in Fiction in 2013. At Columbia, she won the Henfield Prize for the best piece of short fiction by a graduate student. Her work has previously been published in a number of literary magazines.