The Light Between Oceans

By M.L. Stedman, Scribner, 2012, 345 pages
Reviewed by Ted Streuli, Sept. 9, 2020

Janus Rock, a half-day’s boat ride from the Australian mainland, has just two residents: Tom, the lighthouse keeper, and his wife, Isabel.

It is 1923. Tom has been shaped by the Great War and the horrors of the Western Front, the solace of an isolated existence with only Isabel and an annual visit from a supply boat to provide company.

Isabel is young, spunky, in love with Tom and eager for a family.

Two miscarriages and a stillbirth later, Isabel is trying to come to grips with the idea of a childless marriage when a miracle arrives, a boat bearing a dead man and a very much alive baby. Tom’s strict moral compass points to alerting the authorities but magnetic Isabel sees a gift from God, an orphaned girl sent to them alone and persuades her husband that Lucy is meant to be theirs.

It looks as if there’s a clear-cut right answer. You must tell someone. The baby must have other relatives. You can’t just keep her. Being stuck on an island affects that clarity, as does Isabel’s emotional tunnel vision and Tom’s need to please her.

When 2-year-old Lucy accompanies them to the mainland, Tom and Isabel are confronted by others’ views and one especially distraught woman.

“The Light Between Oceans” is about two people, their choices, and the consequences, of course. But it’s also about isolation, about people trying to save one another, and the quandary of whether they want to be saved. In the middle of it is the lighthouse metaphor:

Each night the air sang with the steady hum of the lantern as it turned, turned, turned; even-handed, not blaming the rocks, not fearing the waves: there for salvation if wanted.

The imagery is important; Stedman shows us the rocky, treacherous terrain where a misstep in the dark can lead to the ocean’s relentless fury. She shows us the steadiness of the light and its importance to the many who rely on it. She reveals through her descriptions that rock-steady permanence has the potential to erode.

There are times when the ocean is not the ocean, not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits. Those are the nights the light is needed most.

By the end, you know the right answer and you know the answer you’re rooting for. Whether they’re the same might reveal something about yourself.

“The Light Between Oceans” has haunted me for five years. It’s not over yet.