“My faith in what we had created made any journey comprehensible, every fire possible to withstand; without it there was only wreckage strewn all the way to the lonely horizon, and the slow collapse to the deep sea bed,” begins Helen, the protagonist of Polly Clark’s third novel.
Helen, a conscientious schoolteacher, narrowly escapes with her life after a bombing on the London Underground. The trauma and loss she experiences set in motion an inexorable chain of events, catapulting her from a seemingly happy life into a perilous journey by sea – an attempt to reclaim a younger version of herself.
Ocean is concerned with the unseen powers that buffet and shape human lives. It also warns of the dangers of hanging on to the wreckage of past lives and selves.
This novel shines in its exploration of the deep weirdness of grief and trauma; Helen’s spiralling attempts to find James, the man who helped her escape the aftermath of the bombing, offer us genuine insight into the messiness of the grieving process, and how we can’t or won’t make space for it in contemporary life.
The novel also features an unflinching portrayal of a disintegrating marriage in which we understand both Helen and her husband Frank’s actions, even if it ultimately transpires that one partner’s transgressions are less forgivable. The cruelty of love gone sour is skilfully captured in a number of uncomfortable scenes between the two. The most affecting parts of the novel illuminate Helen’s trauma bond with James, and Clark deftly maps the uncanny connection between them, leaving us wondering what is real, and what is the construct of a damaged psyche.
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I occasionally wished that we could have spent more time exploring these murky depths, but the novel’s maximalist plot makes other demands, whisking us off in several unforeseen directions, sometimes giving us little time to process how the repercussions will play out for the characters. But there’s undoubtedly an entertainment factor here – the plot feels akin at times to that of a thriller – which many readers will surely find compelling.
