The Light Between Oceans is the story of the bonds between parents and children. It explores the implacable strength of these bonds, but also their possible destructive power, and the deep sorrow if these bonds are broken. It is about betrayal and forgiveness and people trying to do the right and moral thing, but inadvertently causing more suffering.
Tom has just returned to Australia from the trenches of World War I. He chooses the isolation of lighthouse keeping to have time to be quiet and not think about the wounds he carries on his soul. He expects to stay alone, but he meets bubbly Isabel who is happy to live with him on isolated Janus rock. They only see other people every three months when the boat brings supplies, and only get shore leave once every three years. Their life is happy until Isabel has three miscarriages. After a storm, a boat washes up on shore containing a dead man and a tiny baby. Isabel and Tom assume that both parents are dead and it seems to Isabel that God has brought them a gift to replace their dead children and that they will be able to keep the baby forever as their own daughter. Then with a Shakespearean sense of impending and unavoidable tragedy, the events unfold.
The calamitous shadow of World War I looms over the story, even in a small Western Australian town, and even in the late 1920s. Of his war experiences Tom will only say to Isabel, “Trying to describe it would be like passing on a disease.” Isabel is her parents’ only surviving child as both her brothers were killed, which was typical of Australia, even though it is so far from the battlefields of Europe.
The Light Between Oceans is a haunting and wrenching story filled with a pervasive sense of loss. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen as all the possible outcomes seemed to be flawed and tragic. Despite this, it is a moving portrait of family bonds (“There is no defending yourself from the love of a baby”) and a wonderful lesson in the power and necessity of forgiveness, when Tom says, “To have a future, you have to give up hope of changing the past.” Plunge in to this book if you like compelling, character-driven literary fiction such as The Orchardist or more fantastically, The Night Circus.
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Blogging for a Good Book 
Intriguing. Great review.
Thanks, nwharris!
Come back every week day and read more reviews. I think the variety of reviewers and viewpoints is a great strength of our blog.
Jan
The summary alone makes me cringe. I usually avoid books filled with tear-jerking scenes because I easily get emotional -and I bottle it down, which makes it worse in the long run, doesn’t it?- but I’m intrigued by the aspect about the shadow of World War I.
It’s not as used as its ‘sequel’, even if it had just as many repercussions for the world and the people in it. The Bonus Army of Washington can tell you that much.
Hopefully there’s a Kindle version… And there is!
Meinos Kaen
I am seeing more and more books (and TV series, like Downton Abbey) coming out that refer to WWI. I don’t think it is exaggerating to say that it changed the whole world and certainly the lives of a generation, much more widely than the Iraq or Afghanistan wars in America now. These contemporary conflicts only directly affected a small percentage of the US population. And this book being set in Australia intrigued me. Australia and New Zealand lost a huge proportion of their young men in WWI despite being so far away from Europe. I went to a Memorial Day Service in May in the small town in Virginia where I currently live and learned that they lost three young men in WWI. The small town in New Zealand where I visited my Grandmother frequently as child lost dozens, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/dannevirke-war-memorial. Every small town in New Zealand has something similar. As a mother of young men now, I can only imagine how life changing and devastating that must have been.
With the centenary of the start of WWI coming up next year, I expect we will see more literature.
Jan
it’s the issue of the world, children and their parents, every child born waits to say the word mama and dada, it’s programmed into them before they are born, sheep and animals are the same. seemingly, humans only think of themselves when the shit hits the fan, i was thinking of divorce and how it affects lives, and wondered why those married didn’t try harder. the answer i came up with was odd, it’s cause they forgot how to love and it’s too easy to divorce.
bwcarey
This book is a wonderful portrait of the strength of love. The characters know their actions will affect other people’s lives, but there are no easy answers.
Jan
it’s never been a better time to promote love, well done
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I’ve just finished this amazing novel! What a story! It had me in tears at the end. As soon as the couple make their big choice they are on a terrible slippery slope as consequence after consequence of their actions take effect. I had no idea how it was going to end or how I thought it should end. Fantastic characters – particularly Tom, whose devotion to his wife is heartbreaking. Utterly brilliant. Highly recommended.
I agree! I doubt anyone can get through this book without tears. I also agree that is was hard to know which outcome I wanted to happen. I read it for my book club and some of the readers were ambivalent like us, but others were adamant that one or the other outcome was the right and moral one. Some people wavered and others seemed to have deep and definite feelings about it, which I thought was interesting.
Jan
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