Sea-ing is Believing: Salt Water Works

There's nothing quite like a book with a surprise party of an ending, and Beatriz Williams is a party planner who knows what she's doing.  I just finished reading Along the Infinite Sea, which is the last installment in the Schuyler sisters trilogy, and it did not disappoint.  Just when I thought I had it all figured out, Beatriz was like, whoa, smarty pants, not so fast!  In addition to mucho mystery, Williams is also known for feisty heroines, witty dialogue, and serving up heaping helpings of history.  Indeed, the cover of Sea looks like an old postcard, its uneven edges framing a tropical paradise that's somehow both bold and dreamy.  Historical fiction is the only way I can digest the moldy old past (sorry, History Channel, but it's true), so good on you, Beatriz, for dropping some knowledge on all us la la land dwellers.

So, where to begin?  If Along the Infinite Sea was lighthearted, then I'd say it should've been called So, I Married a Nazi.  But it's not.  It's so heavy that it's forced me to turn to my old pal levity, right or wrong, as a means of dealing with it.  It's poignant, this tale.  By the end I was crying buckets and once again wondering how I'd come to care so much about people who weren't even real.

The plot alternates between two timelines: 1966, where Pepper Schuyler is pregnant with a married senator's baby, and 1936, where Annabel Creouville/von Kleist/Dommerich (say that five times fast) is pregnant with the baby of a man (also married) who is fleeing the Nazis.  Annabel is young and afraid, and through a wrenching and bizarre string of events, she's ultimately forced to choose between this man and a German general.  Or rather, maybe it's more accurate to say that one of them is forced to choose her.  It's one of those scenarios in which both men have some good and some bad, and not always in the ways you'd expect.  Some may say, "Hey, wait a minute.  Why does she have to end up with either one of these guys?  Isn't there someone less morally ambiguous for her to make strudel with?"  It's a logical question -- which means that it's out of the question for fiction.  Because novels aren't about logic.  They're about pitting characters against impossible situations to get them to show what they're made of.  In other words, if Annabel settled down with some nondescript baker who rubbed her feet every night, then there wouldn't be any story.  And we wouldn't learn anything about her or ourselves or the human condition. 

As for Pepper, she's young but less afraid, partly because it's a different time and party because she's Pepper.  That said, her storyline sort of fades into the background.  But I think that may be intentional, that it's meant as a kind of bright, crackly foil for the more serious Annabel saga.

Yep, lots of fireworks, lots of intrigue, and lots of tears.  That's what's along the infinite sea.

One of these days, Beatriz, I'll crack your code.  One of these days.

Then again, maybe not.

I kind of like being surprised.