One Woman's Writing Retreat: Book Review

The Cast Iron Shore
by Linda Grant

Review by Jillian Leslie

" We are a kind of Chameleons, taking our hue--the hue of our moral character, from those who are about us."

--John Locke

What would you make of a woman whose world seems to revolve only around fashionable clothes, polished nails and smart shoes a woman who is pretty, knows it, and doesn't ponder much beyond the external? Would you automatically dismiss her, assuming she's as deep as a petri dish? Careful. You know what they say about making assumptions.

Sybil has always felt an outsider. Her father, a furrier by trade, a Jew by religion, hails from Belgrade. Her mother is a non religious Christian, from Rotterdam. The family business causes the family to settle in England, where Sybil spends her youth, confused by her mixed nationality, mixed religion and mixed life philosophy. Should she embrace her mother's vacuous but fun shop-til-you-drop, dinner party lifestyle or her father's pious, practical but stolid life? Her father decides for her: She'll work in the fur trade as his secretary.

As always, though, life often carves plans of its own. In 1938, when Sybil is just 14, she meets Stan McGuire, a handsome 19-year-old dark-skinned boy of mixed heritage, who serves as a ship's baker in the merchant's service. Stan's bold, devil-may-care style attracts Sybil, and when they are together she feels accepted for herself.

With the advent of World War II, Stan's duty calls him to sea, while Sybil and her parents watch in horror as England suffers mass destruction. The aftermath of the war not only has a devastating effect on Sybil's country, but also on Sybil personally. Sybil learns a dark family secret, which gnaws for years at her soul.

The timing feels right for change, then, when Stan sends Sybil a letter from his new home: New York. He hints that he left the war before the war left its final black mark on history. Sybil, strangely without objection from her family, decides to emigrate to the United States to begin her own adventure.

The meat of the novel begins when Sybil settles in New York with a place to live, a new job (which eventually leads to a career in fashion sales) and her old boyfriend, Stan, living in the same city.

Whenever Stan appeared in the novel, he irritated the heck out of me, but that's to Grant's credit. Stan is bisexual, apathetic and content to coast along in life, spending his free time snapping photos and smoking reefer. Though Sybil's aware of his unsavory side (and there's a lot more to it than I'm willing to reveal), Stan is her anchor, her life, but is he enough? Sybil needs someone to hold a torch to her posterior.

Enter Julius, a fiercely brilliant, fervid, opinionated, political activist and champion of the working class, the man who eventually draws Sybil into the Communist Party. Julius is black, so Sybil again contends with outsider status. His cronies eye her with skepticism, making Sybil strive to prove her worth to Julius's friends and contacts.

Julius is Stan's foil. Stan questions nothing Julius questions everything. Julius is a doer, a thinker, a debater. He espouses heavy-duty dogma and explores unpopular social ideologies, willing to face danger to effect change. Sybil is awed by his chutzpah. " Through words and language Julius told me he discovered a life in which he could become bigger than himself, a life bigger than he knew ever existed."

Julius constantly challenges Sybil and is not willing to carry her. She has to do her part, find her voice, take a stand and defend it, learn critical thought, and contribute fully and intelligently to be considered worthy in Julius's circle. As she blossoms intellectually, her new life carries her into the Communist Party where Sybil truly believes positive social changes can be made. To prove her sincerity to the Party, she uses her considerable organizational skills to rally people into action.

Does Sybil have the guts to stay true to her new convictions? Can she and Julius survive during the McCarthy era's zero tolerance policy for Communism and continue to fight for their cause? Will Sybil reunite with Stan? What secret from her past is burdening her soul all these years? Patience. Linda Grant will reveal all in due course.

In many respects, Sybil isn't an easy protagonist to like. She spends most of her life as a chameleon, changing and adapting to gain approval from the men in her life. She discards important familial relationships without much reflection. She's self-obsessed, over-sexed, naive and she often makes poor life choices. But Sybil is an idealist who, like all of us, does what she feels is best with her circumstances, whether her choices ultimately benefit her or harm her.

Sybil has more than a degree of self-awareness. She muses, " Sometimes big changes come about just like that you don't really make a decision, life carries you along." But not making decisions, being carried along, are choices in themselves. Ultimately, life grabs her and she grabs back, making her character not heroic, but human and true. That's the beauty of Sybil Ross and the beauty of this novel. Because the characters and situations are complex, the reading journey is both profound and rewarding.

I'd love to reveal more to you about the surprising twists in Sybil's life, which, over the decades, lead to her ultimate metamorphosis, but this isn't a book club, where we can meet and analyze the characters' veracity or dissect salient plot points. Let me leave you with this: If you enjoy a tightly written, richly plotted novel with characters and events that live in your being long after you turn the last page if you enjoy challenging ideas and meaty depth from your reading material, then each multi-textured chapter in The Cast Iron Shore will encourage you to burn the midnight oil with great delight.