Sea Marked
Throwing a Line to a Coastal Past
Linda Cracknell’s captivating memoir concerns her inherited personal connection to the waters of coastal Scotland and England.
As an inspired Christmas present in 2015, Cracknell and her siblings gave their somewhat housebound, elderly mother a half-day sailing trip near her home in Cornwall. To Cracknell’s surprise, her mother boarded the ship and even took the helm for a while. Afterward, she declared that her boating jaunt had been “fantastic.” Cracknell then began to contemplate her family’s longstanding relationship to the sea, sailing, and maritime trade.
Delving into her maternal genealogy, Cracknell records a history of shipowners, sailors, and “triangular” cargo routes from Scotland to Newfoundland and the Iberian Peninsula. Though the crews were male, Cracknell notes that her women ancestors shared their own integral nautical bond: the “interplay of river, sea, geology and moon” determined their economic stability and the “presence, absence and welfare of their menfolk.”
In addition to its family history, the book includes information regarding boatbuilding, ship racing, sailors’ superstitions, and pirate lore. There are intriguing location names like the Taw-Torridge Estuary, Crow Point Lighthouse, and Zulu Bank; lands and seascapes are described in expansive, intricate detail. Cracknell also recalls her own sailing excursions and hikes across coastal terrain, which deepened her innate linkage to “water, salt, and the curved horizon.”
With the arrival of COVID-19 and the unrelated, sudden death of Cracknell’s mother, the record becomes more insular and pensive. Yet the lure of the sea returns when Cracknell and her siblings meet to cast her mother’s ashes into the Cornwall tide, a joyful and impromptu beach ceremony accompanied by “an orchestra” of seagulls.
Revealing past and present legacies of land, sea, and ocean, Sea Marked is a surging, immersive memoir.
Reviewed by
Meg Nola
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
