Saltwater by Elaine Thomson review: 'very satisfying'
Although this is a novel of haars, mists, and tricks of the eye and mind, what is most admirable is its clarity of vision, writes Stuart Kelly
Why are lighthouses so frequently associated with the uncanny? In television recently there have been peculiar lighthouses in both Lost and From, and further back, the unforgettable Doctor Who story, The Horror of Fang Rock. In literature, Poe was maybe the first with his story, “The Lighthouse”, which remained unfinished on his death in 1849, a mere 39 years after Bell constructed The Bell Rock lighthouse; but it has been continued by “gothic” or “weird” authors like Alice Thompson, with Pharos and Jeff VanderMeer with the Southern Reach quartet. Although the property in The House on the Borderland by Hope Hodgson isn’t a lighthouse, the fact it is an isolated cylindrical building on a precipice is striking. There is also the play, Thunder Rock by Robert Ardrey, staged in 1939, released as a film in 1942 with Michael Redgrave and Barbara Mullen (and restaged in 1964 by Kelso High School starring my Mum and Dad).
That there is precedent for Elaine Thomson’s new novel Saltwater: A Midsummer Ghost Story does not imply it is unoriginal. Far from it. As I read it, I was mentally sketching the possible and probable twists and climaxes, and was pleased that the ending was both unlikely and satisfying. There is, for close readers, a tiny clue very near the end when one character says “it is a memory that disturbs me as much as any of the hauntings and visions I experienced that summer on Stroma”. As a “condition of narration” question it implied that – even though I had it odds-on the character wouldn’t make it – this one lives to tell the tale. But the narrative then takes some hair-pin bends that seemed preposterous, until the double-whammy reveal. As I say, very satisfying indeed.
This is the second volume in a proposed quartet which is linked to the seasons. I would also heartily recommend the previous volume, Hawthorn. Set in 1896 it is predominantly narrated by Tom Torrance, a lighthouse builder in the employ of the Stevensons, who is returning to Stroma to complete the project there following the death of his mother in Portobello. He is accompanied by his younger brother, Jamie, a sickly and slightly seedy chap with pretensions towards poetry, whose voice we occasionally hear. Although Tom feels his professional pride is at stake, he is also keen to return having developed a slight infatuation with a local woman, Flora, whose voice, again, regularly and briefly interjects. Even though there are others on the island, this narrative structure effectively inscribes the feelings of isolation and claustrophobia that typify lighthouse works. Although Tom is evidently burying himself in work to avoid grief, he is also required since there have been a number of inexplicable problems with the build. Ropes have snapped, tools disappeared, a spate of vandalism occurred, handprints appeared in supposedly dried render. These are only exacerbated by Tom’s return.
Understandably if obviously in our current literary climate, there are rumours that Flora is a witch, but Thomson muddies the waters ingeniously. There are plenty other supernatural possibilities, selkies, ceasg, giantesses at the bottom of the Swilkie maelstrom, glaistigs. The narrative is balanced between either the supernatural being a real possibility or a psychologically compensatory response to traumatic grief (or even the Scooby-Doo possibility of deliberate impersonation). The islanders have no love for the lighthouse since their hardscrabble crofting and fishing life is supplemented by salvage and wreckage – some of the best parts of the novel are the descriptions of the incongruous bric-a-brac of the dwellings and clothes; it would translate to television excellently. The horror sequences are done very well, again, balancing truly flesh-creeping descriptions of the walking drowned with rationalisations (it was bladderwrack, or anemones, or kittiwakes screeching – indeed, Thomson has just the right ear for natural description).
Another point in the novel’s favour is its conjuration of atmosphere. Often this is achieved by similes and metaphors. For example, we read “the water about it appeared heavy and oily looking, ferrous in the bloody glow of the midsummer dawn”. There is a whole lexicon of ghoulishness applied to natural phenomena, from “lifeless pews” to “still and silent as a corpse”, referring to a sleeping person. There is a kind of psychic turbulence, with Tom frequently saying he did / did not see something or feel something as he tries to reconcile his engineer’s brain with his troubled spirit.
There are some infelicities. For example, I do not think we had to be reminded that Flora has red hair quite so frequently. Given some of the writing is so good, it is disappointing when it seems second-hand or too obvious (“lust pounding in my veins”, “it made my heart ache with joy”).
As the novel tick-tocks towards Midsummer, it channels The Wicker Man – not a bad thing to channel, I suppose, and at least it does not just imitate it. Writing this, and re-reading, I was even more taken by how subtle the foreshadowing is, although at the initial reading what impressed me were aspects like the sibling rivalry, which is done with real precision, pitching between annoyance, affection, resentment and envy. Although this is a novel of haars, mists, and tricks of the eye and mind, what is most admirable is its clarity of vision.
Saltwater, by Elaine Thomson, Sphere, £18.99
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