Memories of Low Tide
Chantal Thomas
Can a daughter ever really understand her mother?
Chantal Thomas grew up in a seaside town on the Atlantic coast of France, inheriting from her mother an obsession with the sea, and for swimming. In this tender and eloquent memoir she seeks to understand her quixotic, often inscrutable mother – a woman who was luminous in the water and once dived into the moat of the Palace of Versailles, but became fettered by marriage and domestic life.
Thomas combs the beaches of her childhood for memories, recalling the sensory pleasures of the sands, the first sharp touch of cold water, and discovering the multitude of ways in which she is still her mother’s daughter.
Written in impossibly beautiful prose, Thomas explores the connection she feels to her childhood home on the Atlantic coast of France and the obsession with the sea she inherited from her mother. Complicated and often inscrutable, Thomas’ mother was fettered by domestic life, but was once the kind of girl who dived into the moat at the Palace of Versailles.
Memories of Low Tide is Chantal Thomas’ search for that effervescent girl, the quest to understand her, and an exploration of the ways she truly is her mother’s daughter.
Dive in and read an extract here.
Natasha Lehrer 