Mandy Reviews: Margo Lanagan's - "Sea Hearts"

I adored Sea Hearts. By the end of only the first few pages, I knew it would be one of those books. You know, those books that get you so immediately, that grip you and won’t let go. Those books you know will stay with you forever, those books that touch you and linger in your mind, your heart and soul.

I’ve read a few of Margo Lanagan’s short stories, but Sea Hearts was the first of her novels I’ve been brave enough to dive into. Lanagan’s writing style is unique; it’s strange and unpredictable, her use of language is, quite honestly, kind of weird and blunt in a beautiful way. I’ve never found her work to be ‘easy reading’, and I don’t think the author intends it to be that way either. Sea Hearts literally took my breath away and didn’t return it until I’d sobbed over the very last page.

From multiple points of view, Sea Hearts tells the story of the brides of remote Rollrock Island. The most intriguing voice for me was that of Misskaella Prout, the sea witch. Bullied by the townsfolk and her family for her frumpy looks that hark back to an ancestor her Mam would prefer they forgot, Misskaella discovers she has a magical connection with the seal colony who inhabit the island. An embarrassing problem at first, she later discovers she is able to draw a beautiful woman from the heart of a female seal. For a price, any man on the island is able to buy himself a bride – an irresistible sea-wife. The husbands store the wives’ seal skins away, thus trapping them in a life unnatural state of being.

But what are the consequences for the men, women, children and compliant seal-wives of Rollrock? Can thoseborne of the sea truly be content with a life on land? It seems not, and the wives, though loving of their husbands and sons, mourn their lost lives, wrapped in blankets knitted of seaweed.

Margo Lanagan has taken the Selkie folktale and expanded, enriched and made it her own. Sea Hearts is lush and disturbing in its commentary on society; on the bitterness, love, loss and need for revenge we feel. Rollrock Island itself was, for me, a character of its own, looming over and bewitching all that lived there. As someone who has lived her entire life by the ocean (and a number of seal colonies…), I really felt the author nailed the power and enchantment of the sea. Lanagan’s unique storytelling drips with salt-spray, you can literally taste the ocean and its magic as you glide through this book.

Sea Hearts is technically a Young Adult novel, and I’d recommend it for readers over fourteen to one hundred and fourteen. Many of the themes covered are mature, but that’s not to say younger readers won’t be lost in Lanagan’s magical world as well. Titled as ‘The Brides of Rollrock Island’ overseas, it also has a number of different covers, each of them stunning in their own right.

If you love mythology, fairytales, folklore or the sea, you’ll lose yourself in Sea Hearts. I rate it as one of my top five reads – ever.

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

Published by Allen & Unwin

Paperback 343 pages.

ISBN – 978 1 74237 505 2