Every Ocean Has a Shore, a novel by Jamie Langston Turner, opens with a few people in a small diner in Chicago. Suddenly a young man with a gun comes in, locks the door, and starts barking orders.
Tragedy is averted, but everyone is shaken. The three adults in the main dining room don’t know it yet, but they are bonded together even after they go their separate ways.
The only customers in the diner at the time were an older woman, Alice, and a young boy. Alice had been estranged from her daughter for years before her daughter died. Alice just found out that her daughter left behind a young son, Ian, who had been cared or by his father. But now the father is dying, and someone finds Alice’s contact information. Alice flew from South Carolina to Chicago to pick up five-year-old Ian, who doesn’t speak. They’ve just stopped at the diner for lunch when the incident occurred.
Gary is the owner of the diner. He was always a quiet man, but became quieter still after his wife died. He’s intelligent, but it takes him a while to think through things. His loneliness and the crime in the city cause him to consider moving, but he doesn’t know where or what he would do with himself. He has a sister in Vermont who needs help fixing up her home. Maybe he’ll start there.
Fawna is the waitress, a college dropout with a birthmark on her cheek in the shape of Borneo and a penchant for saying weird things. She rents a room from a crotchety old woman named Mrs. Welborn and helps her out. Her parents died, leaving her with money to live on. She’s drifted around for the past eight or nine years, but thinks she might like to settle down somewhere. The problem is, she doesn’t know where to go or what she wants to do.
The point of view switches between these three as they go on with their lives but keep in touch. We learn some of their background and issues. Fawna discovers C. S. Lewis and begins to wonder if, as Lewis suggests, someone has been orchestrating all the events of their lives.
Fans of Jamie Langston Turner will welcome this, her first new book in nine years. A few characters from her earlier books make an appearance, particularly Eldeen, the larger-than-life older woman from Jamie’s first book, Suncatchers. But this is a stand-alone novel that can be enjoyed even if you haven’t read the previous books.
Jamie’s books are character-driven, not plot-driven. This isn’t an edge-of-your-seat kind of story. In fact, the story seems pretty slow in places. But as we learn more about each character and see how everything is woven together, we find great depth. I’ve seen many people who don’t normally like Christian fiction say that they like Jamie’s books.
Stray Thoughts 