A Sea of Unspoken Things

I have not lived in the village I grew up in over twenty years, but I still talk about going home when I am visiting. Where I live now has been my home for longer, but there is something about those formative years that make a place always feel like home. I return to see family, but for some people, once they leave, they never look back, even if family remains. In Adrienne Young’s A Sea of Unspoken Things, James Golden returns after two decades, not to see her family, but to discover why she feels an absence of family. What happened to her twin brother in the remote town deep in the Six River National Forest? 

James knew the moment her brother Johnny was shot and killed. She may have been hundreds of miles away, but she felt the pain in her chest and an instant sense of loss. James and Johnny may not have seen each other much in recent years, but they were twins and had a special bond. A bond that bordered on the unnatural. James must return to her childhood home to deal with Johnny’s estate and to investigate his death on her own terms. 

The setting of Hawthorne deep in a National Forest gives Sea a feel of Northern Exposure with its small-town community, but also a touch of Twin Peaks' uncanniness. There are moments in the book that flirt with the supernatural, but I would consider these light and the book is more a murder mystery and character piece. You could argue that some of the feelings that James is feeling are just empathy and nothing more. 

If you are not going to gravitate to Sea for the supernatural, what will draw you in? Plenty, as there is a deep character development element to the book. James must make amends with her past and the present, visiting old haunts and old friends after two decades. There is a lot of internalising in the book as James starts to question the choices that led her to where she is now. If you like a book that delves into the lives of an individual there is a lot to unpack in this book. 

There is also a strong murder mystery element, or is there? James feels that something is not right with the facts about Johnny’s death, but she is a lone voice. We are introduced to a tightknit community in which everyone knows everyone else, but there are a surprising number of secrets to be revealed. The story as some twists and turns, especially in the second half as the death of Johnny becomes clearer, as well as a couple of other cases that have happened in Six Rivers Forest. 

James is the main protagonist in the book, and it is her story, but it is also the story of a place and a feeling. Young is a wonderful writer of the ethereal, giving the forest its own magic and character. As a reader you are never on sure footing throughout the book as Young paints in a style that makes the unbelievable possible.    

With missing people and death at the centre of Sea, this is not something you would expect to be a gentle read, but somehow Young makes it inviting and easy to slip into. The character of James helps, flawed but likable, you are interested to see what happens to her and Young invests time in the writing to make you care about what happened to Johnny out there one day in the lonely woods.