Tidal Flats by Cynthia Newberry Martin

I have been reading Cynthia Newberry Martin's blog How We Spend Our Days for several years and when she announced the publication of a novel I knew I would read it for I loved her quiet elegance and unique style.

I read Tidal Flats in two sittings; had I started it earlier in the day I would have read it in one!

"Up ahead she was surprised to see that the rocks veered quite dramatically to the left. When they'd started out, it had looked like a straight shot."~ from Tidal Flats by Cynthia Newberry Martin

After meeting Ethan, Cass has one future in mind: just her and Ethan together, forever. Ethan is an intrepid photographer who works in Afghanistan, his photographs featured on national magazines, indelibly etched images that include a portrait of the amber-eyed Afghani woman Setara.

Ethan needs Cass and he needs Afghanistan. Cass needs only Ethan. On the tidal flats one wet morning, Cass following Ethan across the treacherous rocks, they make a pact: Ethan will work three more years abroad, and Cass will consider having a child.

They marry and Cass waits at home alone, aware she can never have a child, knowing that events in her past have shut the door on any future as a mother.

Cass spends her days working at a home for elderly women where her soul is fed, a place that is better for her being there. The women have much to teach Cass.  "Look for the good things," she is told, "Your heart may surprise you some day." And, "Plans are good, but life is the thing. Living. And dancing even when the music changes."

Cass counts the days until Ethan is pledged to stay by her side, agonizing over her inability to agree to children. Life veers off her planned path when Ethan's fidelity becomes suspect.

"Like that ride where you swirl so fast, you stick to the side, the bottom falls out, and you're free."~from Tidal Flats by Cynthia Newberry Martin

As Cass wrestles with the demons of her past and the uncertainties of her present, she must decide what kind of future she wants to choose for herself: sticking to her plan or learning to forgive and embrace the life she may not want, but needs.

This haunting novel is a memorable read.

Praise for Tidal Flats:"Cynthia Newberry Martin is a tremendous writer, with a Woolfian talent for taking the full measure of small moments. Her work is both subtle and revelatory, and I've been waiting a long time for this book." ―Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers and Music for Wartime.
"For once, a novel of big ideas that is also filled with bold and uncommon events. In Tidal Flats, Cynthia Newberry Martin, a storyteller at the top of her game, creates a universe of betrayal, compassion, and regret in which two people’s love for each other is surpassed only by their loyalty to their convictions. I was glued to the page." ―Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

Tidal Flats
by Cynthia Newberry Martin
Bonhomie Press
ISBN 9781732676824
$26.95 hardcover, $9.89 Kindle