Summer vacation in a small, isolated community? Kids bored by the monotony of their days? A failing industry, which is affecting the community, but lives in the back of everyone’s mind? A cousin from away, who spurs their adventures? A missing acquaintance and a stranger to the village with a mysterious connection? Welcome to Closer By Sea, a coming-of-age novel set on a fictional island on the coast of Newfoundland, in the summer of 1991.
Pierce and his friends are twelve, having just finished grade six, and will be heading to the big school off-island in September. This is a pivotal summer for them, the last one together as they are now. But it’s mostly the same: riding their ATVs around the island and dodging police who might confiscate them, selling cod tongues on the wharf, wandering while parents are off working. Pierce has been watching the boats come back in, and it’s not been a good year for fishing, hardly any good catches that year. But the son of a fisherman, Pierce still has his plans to finish school, restore his father’s boat, and carry on the family tradition of fishing, with his friends.
But a few things happen that summer: Anna Tessier, a distant friend of Pierce’s, goes missing. Wrapped up in her disappearance is how his memories of Anna tie up with the disappearance of his own father a few years before. His friend Bennie’s cousin Emily comes for the summer, and Pierce has a crush. And finally, Solomon Vickers, who recently came to the island to fish, and doesn’t seem to have any real reason to be there. Pierce casts his suspicion on Vickers, and so the summer begins to take shape: a mystery to be solved.
Perry Chafe has had a long career as a screenwriter, which shows in his debut novel: the setting for each scene in the novel is carefully laid out, bringing us into a rich and fully realized world. Chafe’s writing is vivid and immersive, putting you on Pierce’s island, in his old saltbox house, riding around with his friends, sitting on the wharf. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the summer of 1991 was the last summer of cod fishing, and hints of the change pepper the background of Pierce’s preoccupation that summer. Chafe perfectly captures the feeling of being that in-between age, wanting to be taken seriously, but still really just a kid. The summer vacation feeling is also portrayed perfectly: the long days of doing whatever, and only checking in at home once in a while.
The ending is a bit rushed. The tension around Anna’s disappearance which was carefully built over many chapters peters out in a relatively short section, while the final chapters seek to wrap up Pierce’s story in the years following that summer. It ties everything up nicely, but as a fan of an ending that doesn’t necessarily explain everything that comes after, it fell flat for me. However, the fully immersive story Chafe tells offsets the ending, and ultimately, Closer By Sea is a strong mystery, coming-of-age, summer novel. It straddles several lines and manages to inhabit all of them equally, which is an achievement in itself.
Perry Chafe is a Canadian television writer, showrunner, producer, and songwriter. Born and raised in the small fishing community of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, he now lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Closer by Sea is his debut novel. Connect with him on Twitter @PerryChafe.
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster (May 23 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1982185252
- ISBN-13 : 978-1982185251
Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.
