Margreete's Harbor
Margreete’s Harbor is a passionate and profound love story about a family, and what family means us. It explores sexuality, trust and sacrifice, war and ideologies. Morse dives into family and loyalty in a deeply felt and unique way. With candor and the deepest insight, this story shows us how we live and that we are not alone.
A literary novel set on the coast of Maine during the 1960s, tracing the life of a family and its matriarch as they negotiate sharing a home.
Margreete’s Harbor begins with a fire: a fiercely-independent, thrice-widowed woman living on her own in a rambling house near the Maine coast forgets a hot pan on the stovetop, and nearly burns her place down.
When Margreete Bright calls her daughter Liddie to confess, Liddie realizes that her mother can no longer live alone. She, her husband Harry, and their children Eva and Bernie move from a settled life in Michigan across the country to Margreete’s isolated home, and begin a new life.
Margreete’s Harbor tells the story of ten years in the history of a family: a novel of small moments, intimate betrayals, arrivals and disappearances that coincide with America during the late 1950s through the turbulent 1960s. Liddie, a professional cellist, struggles to find space for her music in a marriage that increasingly confines her; Harry’s critical approach to the growing war in Vietnam endangers his new position as a high school history teacher; Bernie and Eva begin to find their own identities as young adults; and Margreete slowly descends into a private world of memories, even as she comes to find a larger purpose in them.
Morse was able to weave and create real characters with complex inner lives, and everyday life was sometimes a challenge for them…This is something I can fully identify with. Margreete knew her mind was losing bits and pieces every day yet she was determined, stubborn and insisted on living the life on her terms until death arrived. Margreete was probably my favorite character (and the family dog…of course), then Liddie and Bernie. It was remarkable how the author was able to craft personal and interpersonal growth for each of the characters without stepping away from the story line; this couldn't have been easy to achieve.
The 50s and 60s are some of my favorite time periods to read about, so Margreete’s Harbor was right up my alley. These decades were very trying times. There was the Vietnam War, the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and Bobby Kennedy, the moon landing, and the Cold War. We see them all through the eyes of this family, these youngsters, and really it puts you right back there in time. But there were very good occasions in those times, and we see them as well.
Overall, Marggreete’s Harbor is a complex and beautifully woven story of families, and the history we build—the good and the bad—within our families and the world. Morse did a fantastic job of drawing me into the story. It’s a tale that’s rich in description and emotion and I was thoroughly satisfied as I turned the last page.
