Even as characters infuriate with their vanity and short sightedness, there is still sympathy to be had. The novel alternates between six islander perspectives, each multi faceted first person account piercing the part myth, part fairy story cautionary, part Greek hubris tale together, until a picture of what has happened is formed.

In exchange for payment, any man on Rollrock can now purchase himself a sea bride, but what will this deed do for generations of families as deceit, lust, heartbreak and love tear the island apart? Sea Hearts, set in a world so close to ours it very well could be, (a particular trick of Lanagan’s) takes place on remote Rollrock Island, where the shunned and lonely sea witch, Miskealla, draws sea girls out of the seals that frequent the island beaches. Having finally read both, I can now wholeheartedly agree with him. Sea Hearts could have gone either way for me.Ĭhatting to Richard Harland at Supanova this year, he told me he felt it was Margo’s best work since the Hugo winning short story, ‘Singing my Sister Down,’ found in Black Juice. Her ‘colour’ based short story collections, Black Juice, White Time, Red Spikes and Yellowcake are both hit and miss. Yet I absolutely hated her novel, Tender Morsels, a retelling of Snow White and Rose Red. I love the way her prose rips your heart out with poetic and wild abandon.

I have long respected her ability to twist and innovate with her language and narrative structure. My relationship with Lanagan’s work is somewhat odd. I bought a copy for the holiday break alongside Margo’s short story collection, Red Spikes, as a semester ending treat. I’d heard a bit about Sea Hearts through the blogosphere grapevine, and of course, Margo was also at the Sydney Writer’s Festival this year discussing the dark limits (and horizons) of speculative fiction, including those explored in Sea Hearts. To be honest, I should still be doing thesis work as I type, but this book is too good to give short shrift in the reviews department. Hence, this blog has had blog posts scattered few and far between since July. I finished this book back in July but my thesis work attacked me and gave me heart palpitations over how much I still had left to do on it. Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan, Allen and Unwin, 2012

Sea hearts by margo lanagan