A review by lola425
A Seahorse Year by Stacey D'Erasmo

3.0

An interesting study at how a child's mental illness can affect a family. Nan, Hal, Marina, and Christopher may be an unconventional family and yet they fall apart in all the conventional ways. What you might eexpect to draw a family tighter together can actually pull them apart (Nan, Marina) and that same thing can take a new relationship (Hal, Dan) and pull them together. I spent come time trying to reconcile both Marina's and Nan's behavior. Did they love each other, really, if they could not put aside their feelings of betrayal and hurt when it really counted? Nan, I think, is destined to never be able to give herself over fully to a relationship ever again. Her love and worry for Christopher, her willingness, her need to put him ahead of everything and anyone else will see to that. The fact that both Marina and her brother are both exiled, without ever really being given the possibility of forgiveness bears this out. Hal seems able to compartmentalize, can put aside his worry for Christopher (or tamp it down convincingly enough)and open himself up to other people. You know that there will be nothing more for this family than adjusting to Christopher's future changes, as his illness ebbs and flows, the family will be carried along (or swept away) by the current.