2.5 stars. Better for people who like exploring psychological pathways rather than physical ones. I prefer a bit more clarity & actual story, plus I hoped to enjoy a PEI setting, but it didn't resonate for me. ( )

2.5 stars. Better for people who like exploring psychological pathways rather than physical ones. I prefer a bit more clarity & actual story, plus I hoped to enjoy a PEI setting, but it didn't resonate for me. ( )

"He came through the door like a thunderclap, like a breeze. Hey! he yelled. Or, Hey, he said. He let the door slam. He eased it shut.
Which way had it gone? She couldn't be sure."page9

The opening lines of this novel set on Prince Edward Island drew me into the story immediately. How do we remember things? Sonia struggles with the grief of her missing daughter, Stella all the way to the beginning of her missing - does she even remember that correctly? Stella goes missing (presumed drowned) in the winter of 1965, which sends Sonia reeling back in memories to 1941, the summer she worked alone at the lighthouse on Surplus Island. Sonia needs to come to terms with her life and the choices she made (or had made for her) before she can really deal with Stella's disappearance.

Part of the appeal to me is obviously the location. When Compton mentions places or things, they have a meaning for me living on Prince Edward Island. I remember Roger's Hardware, the Rollaway lounge; the road between Winsloe and Rustico is the road I lived when we were first married. The descriptions of the shore and the water continue the tradition of LM Montgomery and the connection to nature here on this island. The writing is poetic and wispy and full of images. This connects even more to the characters, as Sonia could be/was an artist, and Stella has vision issues.

There is a bit of a mystery as to what actually happened to Stella. Suspicion falls on Stella's husband, adding an extra layer to the family's grief and anger. Sonia's denial about this aspect of Stella's life make her believe that Stella has just run away and Sonia puts her energy into finding Stella instead of dealing with her grief.

The strength of the book is in the character of Sonia who was very real, a woman from the middle of the 1900s, with very few choices. She struggled to get by with a husband who was abusive, with children that kept coming, the hard, violent life on a farm, striving to discover her voice. The book and her grief are about her struggle to realize she even had a voice, a vision for herself.

Grief and memory are two common themes in literature. Two other books I read this year also tackled these themes. February by Lisa Moore was also about grief, after the Ocean Ranger disaster in Newfoundland. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes was an old man remembering events from his past and his role in them. Tide Road was a blend of the best of both books. Sonia was dealing with her grief by looking to the past to make sense of her daughter's life. "You still have to solve your own life if you want to be of any help to [your children]" (from p 190) seems to be the advice that starts Sonia on her way. ( )

This is the story of Sonia, whose grown daughter has disappeared, leaving her abusive husband and 18-month-old daughter behind. To everyone, it appears Stella has fallen through soft ice, but Sonia believes she has run away. As Sonia deals with her loss, and watches how it affects her other four children, she begins to question her own life choices. The novel runs on two tracks: the present, and Sonia's youth when she first met her husband (Max) and her true love (Pete). Extremely well written...highly recommended. ( )

Disappearance is at the heart of Tide Road, a poignant and accomplished first novel set in 1960's rural Prince Edward Island. In the opening pages Sonia learns that her adult daughter Stella is missing. No body is found, but the theory put forward by police is that Stella drowned after falling through soft ice on the river. Sonia is not convinced. Her theory is that Stella ran away from home to escape the abuse and neglect and relentless criticism of her husband Evvie. She concentrates her energy on finding proof of this. But Stella's disappearance also shakes something loose within Sonia, and she begins looking back on the time when, as a girl in her late teens, in the 1940s, she met Max, the man who became her husband, and Pete, a gentle soul who after a single romantic encounter retreated from her life, though he never really left it. The narrative proceeds along dual lines, and we see that with the loss of Pete, Sonia, swallowed up by a life in which Max made all the choices for them both, essentially became a missing person herself. As she moves closer to the truth about Stella, she also moves closer to uncomfortable and unflattering truths about herself. Tide Road could be characterized as dark. It deals with disturbing issues such as abuse and suppressed memories of violence. But Valerie Compton's close examination of Sonia's past and present is also triumphant because we learn that the loss of self, and self-worth, can be overcome. In this fine novel Compton creates a vivid and compelling narrative that hinges on memory and family and the necessity of never giving up or giving in. ( )