The Girl Across The Sea
Noelle Harrison
The Girl Across The Sea was my first read by Noelle Harrison. I’m sure it will not be my last.
The Girl Across The Sea is told in then and now chapters and follows the life of seventeen-year-old Ellen, who leaves Ireland for America, in 1925, meets someone during the four-day crossing and is married four weeks after arriving in New York
For unknown reasons Ellen does not want to return to Ireland, so when her husband gets a job in Ireland eight years and one daughter later, Ellen abandons daughter Brigid and her husband leaving them to sail to Ireland alone.
Ellen’s life in America is interesting and varied, to say the least. She constantly thinks of Brigid, but not so of her husband Giles. By the time Ellen reaches her mid-seventies she has been married to Jack for over fifty years and has lived with him in a house, he built on the West Coast of Canada’s Victoria Island for the same amount of time.
Brigid’s story begins when she is almost on her death bed. Brigid has one daughter, Mairead, and a granddaughter, Stella. Brigid and Mairead have never had a great Mother/Daughter relationship. However, all seems to be resolved during the last few weeks of her life. On her deathbed, Brigid asks Mairead to find her mother, Ellen; to which Mairead agrees.
I think The Girl Across The Sea would make a good mini-series or movie.
WoollyMuses 