Away

Away by Jane Urquhart is a complex novel that mixes romance, politics and family all in to one flowing story. It follows the lives of many different characters, but it is told through the memories of a woman named Esther. Esther attempts to sort through her great-grandmother's past, and her entire family's history. Away is a compelling novel that capture's the reader's attention in the first few pages.

The beginning of the novel introduces the reader to Esther O'Malley Robertson as the last of a family of extreme women. She is sitting in her home, remembering a story that her grandmother told her a long time ago. Esther is the first character that the reader is introduced to, but we do not really understand who she is until the end of the story. Esther's main struggle is dealing with her home on Loughbreeze Beach being torn down, and trying to figure out the mysteries of her family's past.

Mary is the next character that is introduced to the reader, and she is a very large part of the story. One day while Mary is at the beach a body washes up on the shore with many cabbages, kettles, and barrels of whiskey. She drags the body to the shore where she lies in the man's arms until he dies. This man was believed to have been from an "other world" and this had a big effect on Mary. She falls in love with this sailor, even though he is dead, and it casts a sort of spell on her. Mary is known to the rest of the village as "away" which means she is enchanted by this other world, the world of the sea. She felt as though her spirit were not in her humanly body anymore, and did not even consider herself Mary anymore. The spirits of the lake had given her a new name, Moira, and that is what she preferred to call herself. The villagers had no hope for, except for Father Quinn.

As the priest on the island, Father Quinn feels he must bring Mary back to reality, but he finds it nearly impossible. He turns to his friend, Brian, who ends up convincing Mary to marry him. They have one child, Liam, and as famine and depression hit the island they live on, they are given the opportunity of a lifetime.

The main landlords of the island, the Sedgewick brothers, present some of the villagers, and Brian and Mary, with the opportunity to travel to Canada to escape the depression. Canada is seen as a land of great opportunity; so many people want to go. Not everyone survives the journey, but Brian, Mary and Liam make it to Canada where they live off the land to sustain themselves. Brian and Mary have another child, a girl named Eileen. Just when all seems to be going well, Mary is called to the lake again by the lake spirits, and deserts her family. Now the family must learn to survive without a mother, for the next time they see Mary, she is dead.

Eileen grows up without her mother, and after her father dies, her and Liam discover that their land cannot be farmed on, so they sell it and set out to find something new. They end up on Loughbreeze Beach where they buy a house and inhabit it. Along the way, however, Eileen meets a man named Aidan, whom she falls deeply in love with. Aidan is a revolutionary who is fighting for the Irish. Aidan leaves Eileen with the promise that they will see each other again, then does not return for a long time. Eileen struggles a lot because of her longing for Aidan, and in time grows farther apart from her brother because of this. When Eileen can no longer stand being apart from Aidan she leaves Loughbreeze Beach in search of him. She meets with him and his revolutionary friends, and they go to a political session where they heard a traitor Irishman politician, McGee speak. Afterwards Eileen learns that Aidan is really a spy for McGee, and wants nothing to do with her. Devastated, she travels home to Liam where she spends the rest of her life. Eileen never fully recovers from the loss of Aidan because she was so deeply in love with him.

The three main themes of Away are romance, family, and politics. The first, and most lasting theme that the reader is introduced to is love, or romance. Mary is taken "away" because of her deep love for the sea. This love was first shown when she attempted to save the sailor that washed up on to the shore in the beginning of the novel. Legend leaves us to believe that the spirits of the sea's other world sent the sailor to Mary so that she would know her true purpose. Even though Mary eventually comes out of this state and marries another man, there is still something inside of her that draws her to the sea. She loves Brian and her children, but in the end she cannot be torn away from her one true love.

Eileen also exhibits some qualities of a true romantic. The moment that she meets Aiden she falls desperately for him, and never lets that go. She is described as a very beautiful girl that could probably have any man that she chooses, but from the first time she lays eyes on Aiden she will not settle for anyone else. Aiden made a half-hearted promise to her, saying that he would return and that they would see each other again. Eileen waits faithfully for him, and when he does not show up, she goes after him. This proves that she is really in love with him. She would go from her comfortable lifestyle in Loughbreeze Beach to a disgusting, flooded town just to be with the one person that she loves. She stuck by with Aiden no matter what he did, or where he went, until the bitter end when she realized that he had been deceiving her all along. It's up to the reader to determine whether or not she would have stayed with him had he allowed her to do so. I feel that Eileen was so in love that she might have chosen to stay with Aiden even after she found out that he was a traitor to her people. She never loved anyone after him, which shows how strong her love for him was.

Family is another theme present in Urquhart's novel, and it goes hand-in-hand with love. The love between Eileen and her brother, Liam, is very strong and showcased in Away. While both of her parents love her, Eileen has a much stronger bond with Liam than with either of them. When Mary left her family to go live near the lake she left Liam and Eileen all alone in their home. Brian was out in town for a couple days, so it was up to Liam to take care of