Grief might be analogous to the baby Loggerhead sea turtle, which starts out buried within the dunes of a beach, and upon “boiling,” needs guidance to reach the open ocean. In Gail Godwin’s 2017 novel, Grief Cottage, grief and death and love and life are explored in intimate, introspective detail, perhaps in an archaeological way, as one characters defines it.
Marcus, 11, goes to live with his solitary, alcoholic Aunt Charlotte Lee (who has her reasons stemming from sexual abuse as a child) at a cottage in a South Carolina beach town after his mother dies in a car crash. His father was dead before Marcus was born. Marcus is smart beyond his years, capable of deep dive conversations with adults, and probing observations and poignant extrapolations from those observations. Yet, he’s still 11 and still dealing with the grief of his mother’s passing and the insecurity that nobody, especially the solitary Aunt Charlotte, wants him. He finds solace in cleaning, in helping the nearing-extinction Loggerhead turtles, through characters like Lachicotte, an older gentleman who becomes a father stand-in, and Coral, a woman nearing death who gives Marcus the archaeological analogy about figuring out who are true selves are, and the somewhat depressing realization that nobody, even those we love most heartily, will ever know our true selves. And there’s also the baggage Marcus carries of having brutally attacked his best friend prior to his mom’s death, Wheezer, because Wheezer made fun of Marcus and his mother’s poverty and living arrangements therein.
Then, Marcus discovers the Grief Cottage because Aunt Charlotte paints it for commissions, and the story of how the Grief Cottage has been around on the beach since 1802, and then in the 1950s, a hurricane hit, killing a family of three who was living in the Grief Cottage, including a boy that would’ve been around Marcus’ age. Again, Marcus is fixated on death, and more importantly, what is left on the beach after the waters recede, as it were. In this case, nobody knows their names, and Marcus finds that terribly sad. He starts seeing the ghost of the boy and feeling his presence. I started to liken the ghost of the boy to the Loggerhead turtles: just as the turtles needed guidance to reach the open ocean, the ghost boy needed Marcus’ guidance to “rest in peace,” i.e., finding his body and telling his story. Which Marcus does by happenstance after essentially planning to kill himself in the Grief Cottage, fittingly enough, thinking Aunt Charlotte doesn’t want him, and he falls through the rotten floor and lands on the ghost boy’s skeletal remains.
In the epilogue, Marcus even “makes up” with Wheezer, who actually sought him out. And naturally, there’s more grief to be felt and endured because Wheezer’s dying of a childhood cancer, if that could be said to be ironic.
Godwin’s book, I don’t think, will be for everyone. I say that because it’s a slow burn read. She takes her time telling this story, and obviously, it deals with these weighty themes around grief, dying, our duty to others and ourselves, and the legacies we leave behind. But I enjoyed it, inasmuch as one can enjoy reflecting on such themes. I especially liked dealing with these themes through the 11-year-old mind of Marcus, who again, was smarter than his years with the way he analyzed what the adults were telling him. But he wasn’t an unbelievable genius because he had humble moments of asking what words and situations meant.
If this book hits you at the right time, I think you’ll appreciate what it has to offer.
Milam's Musings 