Sara Taylor uses her own childhood geography to set this epic family narrative. It is set on one of the small islands on the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia. Most people, if they know of these islands, have heard of Chincoteague, home of wild ponies. But there are other, smaller islands.

The narrator of the novel is a women from one of the original families in the area. Her ancestors go back to a half Native American woman who fled her racist home only to marry a man who was just as racist and tried to kill her to marry a more acceptable women he met later. The women in her family were rugged and strong and none is stronger than she. As a small girl, she saw her father kill her mother and bury her in the backyard. Holly's goal in life is to protect her younger sister so she tells no one what she knows. Instead she protects her sister from their father and the meth-addicted friends he brings around. Then something happens that cannot be overlooked and the family is burst asunder.

Now Holly has returned to the island. She wants to find anyone who knew her parents and to get the true story of her family and all that happened to bring about the childhood she is still trying to reconcile with her adult life. She finds more than she wanted but she needed to know it all.

This is Sara Taylor's debut novel. Her assured recreation of the environment brought her a nomination on the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction. Her characters are strong and willing to do whatever is needed to survive while making sure the family will go on. The narrative spans more than a century and close attention is needed to keep all the family lines straight and determine how each character is related to each other. The timeline also goes back and forth a bit and again requires close attention from the reader. But the beauty and uniqueness of this novel richly rewards any effort needed. This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

There's something about linked short stories--not quite a novel, but not a traditional collection--that speaks to me. Perhaps it's because the form allows authors (and therefore a reader) to explore two kinds of writing at one time; perhaps it is because I view life and stories as a series of snapshots, so the approach resonates with my way of thinking about the world.
The first time I encountered linked short stories, I thought I was starting a "regular," linear novel. Only as I came to the third and then fourth and then fifth chapters of Frederick Reiken's Day for Night (review) did I realize that the novel is a series of connected stories, each chapter offering a new character's perspective, shifting from one voice to another to compose a fully formed account. Ayana Mathis's The Twelve Tribes of Hattie uses a similar approach, consisting of 12 distinct narratives spanning 60 years that combine to reinforce Hattie's position as the heart and soul of this novel about the Great Migration of the 20th century.

In If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go (review), Judy Chicurel centers every chapter on one character, Katie, but uses each to explore a different aspect of the summer after Katie's senior year of high school. Each of Katie's experiences serves to highlight not only her shift to adulthood, but the feel of one time in one place: a small Long Island beach town on the cusp of gentrification in the midst of the Vietnam War.

Likewise, in her debut novel, The Shore, Sara Taylor uses linked stories to explore a particular place--a group of small islands in the Chesapeake Bay. The short story approach here allows Taylor to examine one family across a century of the islands' history, with minor characters reappearing in later stories in bold and unexpected ways.

Beautiful writing. Sara Taylor definitely has talent. This reads more like a loosely woven collection of short stories than a novel. The chapters connect through a basic narrative, but there is a lack of cohesion that takes away from the overall power of the book. A very odd mix of genres develops in the final 1/3. To be honest, I'm somewhat confused about what I just read.