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    The Sea House: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Sea House: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Sea House: A Novel
    Ebook332 pages5 hours

    The Sea House: A Novel

    By Esther Freud

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Unexpected and satisfying.” — New York Newsday

    The architect Klaus Lehmann loves his wife, Elsa, with a passion that continues throughout their married life despite long periods of separation. Almost half a century after Lehmann’s death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Pouring over Klaus’s letters to Elsa, Lily pieces together the story of their lives together and apart. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home.

    The Sea House is the story of the village of Steerborough and the marshes and the sea beyond. It is the story of one generation living in the footprints of another; of a landscape shaped by lives, and lives shaped by landscape. With characteristic skill and a new depth and range, Esther Freud explores the twisting paths that people take—and the places where those paths meet.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 5, 2013
    ISBN9780062030795
    Unavailable
    The Sea House: A Novel
    Author

    Esther Freud

    Esther Freud is the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and the daughter of the painter Lucian Freud. She trained as an actress before writing her first novel. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages. She lives in London.

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    Reviews for The Sea House

    3.5/5

    4 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I love the descriptive prose however plot was dull and lacked that spark!
    • 4/5
      What I enjoyed most in this book were the descriptions of the British (North sea) coast, and the seaside village. I felt as if I was actually there, hiking along the river, the estuary, the marshes and the beach, smelling the sea, feeling the wind and the sun, the sand between my toes. Getting to know the village and its inhabitants, just as the two main characters of this novel, Max and Lily, do. Seriously, if I had lived a little closer I would actually have gone there for the weekend to finish this book there!This novel follows the two characters during their stay in the village of Steerborough. Max in 1953 and Lily about half a century later. Both are outsiders who have come to the village from London to escape some sort of loneliness. Max has just lost his sister, who has been the most important person in his life since he escaped the Nazi's in Germany in the late 1930's, and who he has lived with in London (almost) ever since. Lily escapes from a relationship that she has serious doubts about. Max paints the village on a scroll, while Lily studies the letters that the architect Klaus Lehmann wrote to his wife Elsa over the years, hoping to use them for her thesis. Both find temporary love that cannot last. Apart from the extensive descriptions of the setting (the village and its surroundings) the most important subject of the book is love and relationships. But somehow this subject of love was lacking depth. As said, there were many parallels between the two story lines, and I wondered why Esther Freud made the choice for two stories instead of one. If she had chosen for one story line she could have given that story more depth. Now it seemed unbalanced somehow.
    • 3/5
      I found the book confusing for quite a while but by the finish I had warmed to the writer's straight-forward style and excellent descriptive writing. It is quite a complicated story set in two time periods.
    • 4/5
      The author is Lucien's daughter. Written very visually, about houses and landscapes and two parallel relationships years apart that take place in the same setting. Very well done.