Life in the Air Ocean

Foley, Sylvia. Life in the Air Ocean. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1999.

Life in the Air Ocean is made up of nine short stories that are all interconnected.

• “Cave Fish” introduces Daniel to the reader. Husband to Iris, he is a veteran and has a baby daughter. “Her eyes slipped back and forth like a cave fish” (p 10). I have no idea what that means.
• “Boy Wonder” takes us back to when Daniel was an abused boy.
• “Life in the Air Ocean” is from Iris’s point of view. “Iris knew she was dawdling on the side of madness” (p 33).
• “Elemenopy” is Ruth’s story and alludes to a sinister secret.
• “Off Grenada” introduces us to three year old Monica as the new addition to the Mowry family. Older sister, Ruth, is now seven years old. “Stilts of electricity were walking over the water” (p 74).
• “Cloudland” is ominous. Allusions of sexual abuse and alcoholism are repeated.
• “State of the Union” addresses Iris’s alcoholism and growing paranoia that her husband is cheating on her. At this point, her children have grown (Monica, the youngest, is in college) and she barely has contact with them.
• “History of Sex” is told from Ruth’s point of view in first person and is probably the most disturbing of the stories.
• “Dogfight” is told from the youngest daughter, Monica’s point of view.

All along bits and pieces of the story are drawn out. Ruth is a baby without a name of gender for the first two stories. It’s like a peep show where only tantalizing tidbits are introduced. As the curtain goes down on one story, you hope it opens to reveal more in the next. This was a difficult series of stories to read. Depressing doesn’t even begin to describe it. I feel like I read this and winced all the way through it.

Reason read: March is National Family Month and Pearl lumped this book in the chapter “Families in Trouble” (see Twist).

Author fact: While poking around the internet I found an epub book called Cave Fish: Stories by Sylvia Foley. It’s a free download. Hmmmm…

Book trivia:

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Families in Trouble” (p 83). I wasn’t looking forward to reading this because Pearl called Life in the Air Ocean “…one of the most depressing books” she has ever read (p 83). Oh joy.