How Far Is the Ocean from Here: A Novel

Read this book. One of my favorites of all time. I hope Amy Shearn writes more novels as beautiful as this one.

The characters in this book will stay with me for a long time. As other reviewers have noted, the language is a joy to read. The story takes place in an unexpected oasis in the desert. Lost souls looking for an anchor find each other and their lives change in unexpected ways. Former lives are left behind and new ties are forged in a story filled with love, mistakes, friendship and digging for the essence of one's being.

On a recent road trip to southeastern New Mexico, derelict or run-down motels and cafes whizzed past the window, interrupting my view of the mesas and horizon. These buildings and businesses were mysteriously erected between small towns or just outside them with seemingly little to offer weary travelers. Yet, because I had just read Amy Shearn's excellent debut, HOW FAR IS THE OCEAN FROM HERE, they also held a strange promise of transformation and healing solitude. Susannah Prue is a young woman in danger of disappearing. She feels unseen and unknown by even those closest to her. She makes the radical decision to become a surrogate mother in order to do something and feel something. But, just weeks before her due date, she disappears on purpose, jumping into her car and traveling southwest, heading to the ocean, and finally finding herself --- literally and later figuratively --- at the Thunder Lodge, an empty motel in the middle of the New Mexican desert. Run by the gruff and long isolated Marlon and Char, the motel proves an uneasy refuge for Susannah, a place she means to be only a temporary home. Soon she falls into a routine, watching the highway and spending time with the couple's strange son Tim. Susannah is attracted by Tim's beauty and simplicity, and she willfully ignores his disability, causing Marlon, and especially Char, much distress. But Susannah is also distressed, and wounded, and must decide quickly what she wants to do. It is only a matter of time before Julian and Kit, the biological and legal parents of the baby she is carrying, find her hiding at the Thunder Lodge. Julian and Kit are the successful couple who, from all appearances, have everything that Susannah does not. But their inability to conceive a child has led them to their uneasy relationship with Susannah. While Kit deals deep-seeded suspicions and jealousies, Julian finds himself attracted to Susannah, and they begin to spend time together secretly. As the baby grows inside Susannah it becomes harder to define the boundaries of their relationship, and Susannah finds it more difficult to emotionally come to terms with surrogacy. Often childlike and simple herself, the Thunder Lodge and the surrounding desert provide empty space and ample time for much-needed adult contemplation. It is interrupted only by her fascination with Tim and the arrival of an intriguing pair of travelers who also seem at a crossroads in life. HOW FAR IS THE OCEAN FROM HERE is the story of longing --- for freedom, peace, love and belonging to something greater than oneself. The tone is at once conversational and completely literary. There is a timelessness, not quite old-fashioned, in the author's phrasing that makes the story lovely and surprising to read. The characters are quirky without being caricatures. They are not always likable, yet their stories, as individuals and as parts of the larger novel, are compelling. Amy Shearn's first work of fiction is nothing short of marvelous; b

Susannah Prue agreed to serve as a surrogate mother to wealthy Kit and Julian Forsythe, but in the trimester of her pregnancy, she changes her mind and flees. Now "hugely pregnant" Susannah takes refuge at the dilapidated Thunder Lodge motel owned by the elderly Garlands who generally know why a big pregnant big city girl chooses to fall of the map and be buried on the Texas-New Mexico desert. Susannah finds the other guests and the owner Marlan, who calls her Susie Q, and his family as desperate to hide from the world or at least someone like she is. She makes friends with the owners' mentally impaired teenage son Tim and Alabamian Dicey and her niece Frank. Now Susannah is going to give birth any day, but has no idea what to do about her child, but knows what she does not desire, the disinterested Forsythe couple raising her baby. The residents of Thunder Lodge are a terrific fully developed eccentric group who forge a family of sorts; on the other hand Kit and Julian are stereotypes of the idle rich with no purpose in life except hedonism. Julian sums it up when he suggests to Kit they should redecorate their home instead of raising a child while Susannah is already carrying. Still this is a profound character study focusing on the human need for love and belonging with others by answering the deep philosophical title question. Harriet Klausner

Susannah Pruh is a surrogate, runaway, very soon-to-be delivered young woman, whose car dies at the Thunder Lodge in the desert somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Maybe Texas, I forget. This unusual first novel involves the relationships between Susannah, the surrogate parents, the motel owners and their mentally disabled teenaged son, and an aunt and niece combo who are the only other guests at the motel. This is literary fiction about folks who are mostly flawed through no fault of their own. Genetics and the cycle of bad parenting for some. Others are just trying to figure things out, to get to a better place in their lives. Hoping that something good will happen to them. Sometimes getting a little mixed up when they try too hard to make it happen and the hormones and heat have obviously fried their brains. Stressful situations abound for all. I would be surprised if it were by chance that it's the youngest person in the novel who seems to have his act together the most. But what I liked best about the novel were simply the words. Ah, the beautifully, well-chosen words. You frequently get that in a first novel and this one has them in spades. As soon as our surrogate couple gets out of Chicago, Illinois scared them. The sun elbows through the clouds. The sky lowered like a disappointed forehead. The suitcases' tousled entrails fell out. The book walks a fine line between seriousness and comic relief. The author must be quite witty and so lets her characters be too. But it is a dark novel as well. I would love to express a few thoughts about the ending but, of course, can't. I'll just say that the 2nd half of the book, I believe, is the stronger half. It comes with a book discussion guide and this would be a great one for book clubs. Now that I'm a retired librarian I should really find the time to join one! So many fine books . . . and such a finite time we have. Enjoy this one - it's a fine ride across the desert and still pretty far to the ocean when you don't know if you're ready to sink or swim.