"The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Stedman

Sometimes a good object lesson made in story form can be better than something overly dramatic and dripping with sentimentality. The Light Between Oceans is a perfect object lesson about the blurred lines between the usually stark contrast of right and wrong. Morality, no matter how much some might like to convince themselves of it, is never easy. London based, Australian author M.L. Stedman writes her powerful first story, The Light Between Oceans, conveying this complexity in all its perfect dimensions.

Tom Sherbourne, well-respected World War I veteran, is emotionally and spiritually wounded after his return from action, especially by the fact that he survived while many of his comrades were brutally killed. The question of why *he* was the one that was allowed to live nags at him daily. Damaged also from a broken home, Sherbourne puts the entirety of his mind and soul into his work. He is detailed and exhaustive in the work he does, and soon he is known as one of the best lightkeepers in a small part of Australia. Good lightkeepers are very rare to come by. The work is not cut out for everyone. It takes a particular kind of person to withstand keeping the intricate schedule as well as the solitude. It is this hard and difficult work that takes him to Partugeuse, the place where he meets the love of his life, Isabel Graysmark. Young, kind, strong, and beautiful, Isabel revives Tom’s weakened spirit and they are wed. They move off to the island to keep watch over the passing boats, recording the minute details of each day and night, Tom helping those who are in danger. Their life is quaint, romantic, and dreamlike… but quickly turns into a nightmare when they try for a baby, and time and time again have it taken away by forces of nature they cannot understand. When a dead man and an infant reach their shores on a small boat, their lives change forever. 

Stedman’s description of Janus Rock, the island where Tom and Isabel live and where the lighthouse is located, is utterly beautiful. The isolation and the closeness to a type of nature not typically described (especially for an island) is brought to the forefront in this story, tapping into a kind of picturesque wasteland of light, ocean, fresh air, sparse plants, the occasional animal, the soft sounds of human voices, male and female and infant. The architecture of the lighthouse and their island cottage are vivid and haunting. But, though it seems Janus Rock is safe from the savage world, it proves not to be. The outside world reaches Janus Rock’s shores as both a blessing and curse. Isabel’s longing for a child is so great that she takes another one as her own, though she knows the child’s actual mother is alive… and Tom knows this is wrong in his heart. But yet, how can he say no to his lovely wife, so maternal and innocent, who has already had three children taken away from her through no fault of her own? 

The events in this story crescendo slowly, describing the heartbreaking trials that Isabel, Tom, and the people across the ocean (the child’s biological family) must deal with and confront. The confusion of all parties and the way they cope with them show a test of both carnal and spiritual resilience, all the more tragic because the characters, even the most flawed of them, fight with overflowing passion and love. The Light Between Oceans is a story capable of teaching readers real empathy for all kinds of people on completely different sides of the same story. 

Stedman’s striking representation of two distinct kinds of society in Australia in the years after World War I is particularly fascinating. One, the Graysmarks, Isabel’s family, a provincial, well-respected conservative family, and Hannah Roennfeldt’s, a more worldly family from outside Partaguese, stylish and moneyed - but both carrying an aura of human suffering and pain, rightly so from past losses and hardships. Though a commonplace thematic element, the common humanity drawn between these two families - seemingly separated by superficial values - is uniquely written in this most compelling book.

If possible, read the book before watching the film.