Book Review: BEYOND THAT, THE SEA by Laura Spence-Ash

 

Title: BEYOND THAT, THE SEA

Author:  Laura Spence-Ash

Read: March 2024

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!

 

Book Description:

 

As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: they decide to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America. There, she’ll live with another family for the duration of the war, where they hope she’ll stay safe.

Scared and angry, feeling lonely and displaced, Bea arrives in Boston to meet the Gregorys. Mr. and Mrs. G, and their sons William and Gerald, fold Bea seamlessly into their world. She becomes part of this lively family, learning their ways and their stories, adjusting to their affluent lifestyle. Bea grows close to both boys, one older and one younger, and fills in the gap between them. Before long, before she even realizes it, life with the Gregorys feels more natural to her than the quiet, spare life with her own parents back in England.

As Bea comes into herself and relaxes into her new life—summers on the coast in Maine, new friends clamoring to hear about life across the sea—the girl she had been begins to fade away, until, abruptly, she is called home to London when the war ends.

Desperate as she is not to leave this life behind, Bea dutifully retraces her trip across the Atlantic back to her new, old world. As she returns to post-war London, the memory of her American family stays with her, never fully letting her go, and always pulling on her heart as she tries to move on and pursue love and a life of her own.

As we follow Bea over time, navigating between her two worlds, Beyond That, the Sea emerges as a beautifully written, absorbing novel, full of grace and heartache, forgiveness and understanding, loss and love.

My musings:

 

BEYOND THAT, THE SEA is one of those rare books that come out of nowhere and totally steal your heart. Taking part over a time span of thirty years, the book tells the story of eleven year old Beatrix, who has been evacuated from war torn London to live with a family in America until the end of WWII. Whilst her parents had hoped that the separation would be a short one, it’s five long years until Beatrix can return home again, and then she has been fundamentally changed by her time with the Gregory family.

It’s hard to believe that BEYOND THAT, THE SEA is a debut novel because it is not only insightful and wise, but also written with such skill that the characters immediately came to life for me. As someone who has left my country of birth at a young age to live far away from my origins, I could relate to Beatrix’s sense of estrangement when returning to London after spending her formative years in a place where the culture was significantly different from that of her homeland. I also found it heartbreaking that she was expected to let go of the bond she had formed with her foster family during those early adolescent years, when she was especially vulnerable and far from her own family. In the time of snapchat and facebook it is sometimes hard to remember that not all that long ago it was a lot more difficult to stay in touch, even though I loved the concept of a chess game playing out through “snail-mail” postcards.

BEYOND THAT, THE SEA made me feel warm and fuzzy and teary in equal measure. I shed may tears when I though of Mrs G’s grief of losing the foster daughter she had taken in with such generosity and had come to love as her own. On the other hand, I understood the grief, resentment and jealousy Bea’s mother is experiencing, having to let her child go to another family, who are fortunate enough to escape the horror of war through the sheer luck of fate. One passage where Bea’s mother lashes out at the Gregory family for “living such a good life and eating lots of food” whilst people in London live in daily fear of bombs and have to survive on hard rations resonated with me – especially how the lottery of where you are born determines so much of your fate.

BEYOND THAT, THE SEA is a slow, character driven story exploring the meaning of family and belonging. It also reminded me of my own privilege and to be grateful that I raised my own children in peace and never had to make those terrible choices Bea's parents were forced to contamplate, out of love for their child. Written with a wisdom that will resonate through all ages, this book deeply touched me and will stay in my mind for a long time to come.