I must admit, I bought this book because it was pretty. I have no qualms in admitting I do judge a book by its cover and when I saw Where Light Meets Water, I couldn’t help but buy it with the intention of reading it one day. I just didn’t know it was going to be so good.

Where Light Meets Water, by Susan Paterson, is an honest look at how art shapes the self. Spanning the years 1847-1871 it brings the intellectual and emotional together in a rebellion over the fuss and austerity of Victorian society. The story is delightfully fluid – it follows the life of sailor and artist Tom Rutherford as he docks in various ports around the world. It could almost be read as a Victorian travel story, though the prose is not classical enough for that. At times, I found Paterson’s voice a little too poetic with an occasional unoriginal phrase. It was the narrative arc itself which encouraged me to keep reading.  

The book is mainly about love, as so many books are. Despite this, Where Light Meets Water retains its originality and uniqueness. Tom’s father died at sea when Tom was a boy, and the book is as much about grief as it is about love – it draws a curious parallel between the two – so much so that love and grief are not conveyed as opposites, but as one and the same. While docked in London, Tom falls in love and marries Catherine Ogilvie. They both share a passion for painting and Catherine challenges the artist in Tom. He paints what he knows and loves – ships and the sea. When Catherine dies from a fever while Tom is on a voyage to Calcutta, she leaves behind their son James. Cast out by his brother-in-law Alfred and forced to sign his guardianship of James over to him, Tom leaves London and makes his way to Melbourne. There, Tom delves deeper into his art and further develops his style, eventually selling his pieces at various exhibitions. While he grieves for Catherine, he meets Charlie – a boy of about ten whose father left for the goldfields and never returned. Tom takes him in, and the two grow close. Eventually Tom settles in New Zealand, where Charlie, himself, and their physician friend Seamus relax into a steady existence. The story appears to be closing when Tom’s son James writes to him from Japan, expressing his wish to meet with his father. Tom decides to do so and hires a crew to sail to Yokohama. Halfway through their voyage, they meet with still seas. For days they remain unmoving, and the crew begin to suffer from hallucinations. A few men fall overboard, thinking in their madness, that they are falling onto flat, grassy fields. This last part of the story is written in first person from Tom’s point of view. Paterson is clever to do this. It gives the reader a final insight into Tom’s character. Described once as “damned infuriatingly closed” by his friend Seamus, the reader is privileged to finally see behind Tom’s walls to the real man. Eventually the breeze comes, and as they near Japan’s coastline, Tom begins to paint.     

Where Light Meets Water is about the intimacies of a sailor’s relationship with himself, his art, and the people he loves – it shows how all these things can combine to shape friendships and bring the world close.