Sea House by Esther Freud - A Captivating Novel for Beach Reading & Summer Getaways | April 2004 Edition

It may unfair to Esther Freud to begin a review by pointing out that she is the great-granddaughter of you-know-who, but it would be unfair to the reader not to mention it, because one of the themes is the German-Jewish refugee experience in England and one of her characters is a psychoanalyst. The author adds to the relevance of her personal background by providing a list of acknowledgements at the end that almost suggests we have been reading a roman a clef.There are two main settings, seaside communities on opposite shores of the North Sea. One is a meticulously described East Anglian village, Steerborough, the other a German island (which might actually be in the Baltic).The two main plots are set 50 years apart in time. One is the story, set in the fifties, of a refugee architect, Klaus, and his wife, Elsa, the other is the story of Lily,a student of architectural history, who is studying the life and work of Klaus and worrying about her relationship with her London architect lover, Nick.Several other plots are interlinked. Lily gets involved with Grae who is desperately trying to care for two young daughters, Emm and Arry, reminiscent of the wonderful ones in "Hideous Kinky," and who may or may not be the guilty party in his violent relationship with their mother. Elsa has an affair with the deaf artist Max, who is painting a panorama of Steerborough.It sounds complicated, and there are many subtleties and nuances that will repay a second reading, but the characters are so well demarcated, their dialog is so realistic, and their actions flow so naturally from their personalities, that it is never hard to follow for pure entertainment.