Saltsea

A lovely, meditative novel, a story about memory, and about how what once was continues to affect what is and what will be. It is the story of a place, of the family that used to own it, and the people who have been its caretakers. Saltsea, a hotel on the shores of Prince Edward Island, where people come for a brief time, their lives intersecting in intimate and unforeseen ways. The characters of Saltsea are finely drawn, with humour, love and compassion. Sadness and even tragedy are a constant here, but Helwig handles it all humanely, without sentimentality, and with the control of a writer at the height of his powers. Saltsea, befitting a novel so concerned with memory, is not something you will soon forget.