With the Tide

Psychologists argue when a person experiences a traumatic event, their mind may find it so shocking it is buried deep within the inaccessible confines of the unconscious. Mary Bright Carr toys with this notion of memory and the outside forces that affect it in her novel, WITH THE TIDE.

Jon (Jonquil) is an emigrant from the UK, educated in biology at Trinity College in Dublin, who settles in a small town in Hudson Valley, New York. There, with her young daughter, she begins to experience flashbacks of memories from a time in her previous marriage when her grip on reality was loosening. The memories are subtle and flashing, but finally reveal to her the nature of living things.

Memories linger. They are stored away, hidden beneath the surface. But memories have a life of their own. They rarely stay hidden forever and oftentimes jump out and startle us with their power. And in the end, they help to reveal to Jon the nature of all living things.