The Beached Ones

The Beached Ones is the first of Colleen Story's fictional works that I have read although I have previously found her nonfiction books - Writer Get Noticed! and Your Writing Matters - interesting and well-written. The ambiguous opening chapters of The Beached Ones really captured my attention and intrigued me. Was this a magical realism novel, or a ghost story, or something else altogether? It turned out to be an ambitious and deftly crafted combination of all those aspects and I loved how Story allowed the reader's awareness to grow just in advance of Daniel's so we could share in his discoveries.

His childhood scenes were sometimes upsetting to read, especially when they veered towards neglect and abuse. Seeing this from a future where we already know something has gone haywire for Daniel gives these moments a deep sense of foreboding. I just had to keep turning the pages to find out what was going on! The dysfunctional family relationships are another aspect of The Beached Ones that give this fantastical story a solid and authentic grounding. Valerie is obviously not coping as a mother, so young Tony's insistence on clinging to the idea of her as a capable Mommy is heartbreaking, particularly when contrasted with Daniel's entrenched cynicism borne of so many more years of lived experience and a darker estrangement.

I recommend The Beached Ones as a powerful read for fans of family dramas and alternate reality tales.

The Beached Ones is a ghost story that breaks a lot of rules, plays with your expectations and keeps surprising you. Three intertwining love stories weave through the whole book – Daniel’s love for his decade-younger brother, his love for a fragile, troubled girl, and his love of motorcycles. He would die for any of them. And he does.

It’s a book that tosses the reader from one emotion to another. Outrage and sadness at Daniel’s troubled upbringing, unravelling via flashbacks throughout the book. Bewilderment as we see a world between worlds through his eyes. Grief and sadness at some of the decisions that the characters have to take, frustration, curiosity, fear…. It’s also a book that made me ask existential questions - about what it is to be alive or dead, to have agency, to be visible, to be known. I found myself thinking about other invisibilities – of age and class and social position – and of the liminal worlds inhabited by people who are discounted. I found myself thinking about what it is to love someone, when you can’t see them, touch them, be with them. And about what a small thing life is, what a wafer thin boundary there is between existence and non-existence.

Issues of suicide figure at various points in this story, and this isn't a book to read if you are battling those issues in your own life or in relation to someone you love. But all the same, it made me think about the power involved in an act of self-extinction, the terrifying energy unleashed by even the loneliest of suicides.

The book is exquisitely plotted. There are twists throughout, and I didn’t see them coming. Events and relationships cross in unexpected ways that always make absolute sense as one reaches their conjunction. Nothing feels forced in this story, despite the labyrinthine contortions that it actually accomplishes.

This is a truly beautiful book.