Life’s hidden depths
In the hands of another writer, in the pages of another book, the opening scene of Andrew Miller’s striking new novel The Crossing might come perilously close to a “meetcute,” that moment in romantic comedies when an accident draws together the individuals fated — by script or circumstance — to become romantically involved.
The novel begins with “a young woman,” Maud, working on a boat in drydock in the early spring. She’s being watched by Tim, a fellow member of the university sailing club. He’s attracted to her, she barely notices him, but that’s not personal: Maud is an island unto herself, detached to the point of coldness, uninterested in others around her, with a tattoo on her wrist which, translated from the Latin, reads “Every man for himself.”
Tim is there when Maud falls from the boat’s deck, tumbling 20 feet to the concrete below.
He’s there for her recovery from the injuries she suffers. And it’s his presence, more than anything else, which draws them together, an uneasy match between the distant medical student and the earnest would-be musician, cushioned by his family’s wealth. But The Crossing isn’t a love story. In fact, the novel’s greatest strength is that one is never really able to describe what, precisely, it is. The narrative shifts and moves unceasingly below the surface, much like the waves under a sailboat, and the reader rides along with it. At times, it’s the story of a relationship, a family drama, a story of devastating loss and recovery, of grief and healing. It’s the story of lives created and destroyed, of a woman coming to terms with herself and her world, and not. It’s all of those things, and none of them, and something else, something larger, something deeper.
Miller’s writing — for which he has been awarded the Costa Book of the Year award and been shortlisted for the Booker and the Whitbread Novel of the Year award — is clear and pure, unadorned but not simple.
At its heart, The Crossing is a story about the hidden depths of life, of individuals, a beautiful, haunting work that surprises at every turn.