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The Book Review
Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Wild Dark Shore,' by Charlotte McConaghy
00:43:50
Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel, “Wild Dark Shore,” opens with an enigma: A mysterious, half-drowned woman washes ashore. On this week’s episode, Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses the novel with his colleagues Lauren Christensen and Elisabeth Egan.
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I'm Gilbert Cruz. I'm the editor of the New York Times Book Review and this is the Book Review podcast. We are ending this month and ending the summer with our monthly book club episode, hosted as always by M.J. franklin. This week he and his panel are discussing Wild Darkshore. We are taking off next week for Labor Day. I hope everyone uses that time to read something good and we'll see you on the other side. Hello and welcome to another book club episode of the Book Review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review and for this month's Book Review Book Club, we're talking about Wild Dark shore by Charlotte McConaughey. We chose this book for our book club because it's August, summer is winding down, people are squeezing in their last summer vacations and we thought lets read a propulsive but still thought provoking book that people can sink their teeth into wherever they may be, whether that's hiding indoors from the heat, basking in the sun at the beach, or anywhere in between. And joining me to discuss the novel are two of my Book review colleagues, both returning book clubbers. First we have Lauren Christensen, who you may remember from our conversation about We Do Not Part by Hong Gong back in March. Welcome back, Lauren.
- [01:58]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [02:00]
C
Also with us is Liz Egan, who is here last at the end of 2024 to discuss small things like these. Liz, it's been a while. Welcome back.
- [02:08]
A
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be back.
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C
And in that episode it was all of us together with another colleague, Joumana. So it's like getting the band back together. Thank you both.
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A
Glad to be here.
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B
Same.
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C
Well, we have a very different book to talk about this time around, but before we dive into that conversation, you know the drill, people. I have a few admin notes. First, at the end of the episode we will reveal our September book club book, so stay with us to find out what we're reading next. Second, there will be spoilers in this conversation, but given that the twists are part of the fun of this novel, to keep this conversation accessible, we're gonna keep the first half of this episode, if not completely spoiler free, spoiler light. And then we'll save the revelation. So the second half, there will be big spoilers. We're gonna be diving all the way in. So that will be in the second half of the episode. So choose your own adventure. If you care about spoile, listen to the first half. If you don't care about spoilers, listen to everything. Read the book. Come back to us. Just listen to us. Who knows? It's all on you. That's the beauty of a podcast. But we're gonna dive in. And then, last but not least, this is just a please don't yell at me anxiety note. I just want to say for this conversation, I'm pronouncing the author's name as Charlotte McConaughey because that's what it sounded like on the audiobook. That's what it sounded like when I listened to interviews. I try to make sure I got her name right, but already when just talking about the book, I've gotten people saying, actually, you're pronouncing her name wrong. It is McGonaghey. I am trying my best. We will be saying Charlotte McConaughey. If we are wrong, it is no disrespect, but I just want to put that out there. So those are all our admin notes. And with those out of the way, could someone give us a brief elevator pitch? Synopsis what is this book about?
- [03:45]
B
I would love to. Wild Dark Shore is what I would call a climate change mystery that is also a moving drama about a family that's been left on an inhospitable island. It's somewhere between Antarctica and Australia. It's basically at the bottom of the earth, and this family is charged with taking care of a seed vault that will repopulate all of the earth's flora after the apocalypse. This family consists of a widower father named Dominic Salt and his three children, their two teenagers, Raph and Fen and the precocious nine year old son Orly. And these four live a very strict, hard working, highly rationed life amid penguins and elephant seals and whales. And nearby is an abandoned research base that is no longer inhabited by the scientists that used to work there because they've all fled due to this flooding that is about to result, or is in the process of resulting from the thawing permafrost layer. When the novel begins, the body of a woman has washed ashore in a dangerous storm. She turns out to be alive, but only barely, and the family nurses her back to health. So that's the setup. And I know this is a spoiler light beginning. So without giving away too much I'll just say that the remainder of the novel sees this growing intimacy as well as suspicion between the woman whose name is Rowan, and the various members of the Salt family, each of whom has his or her own mysterious reasons for both being drawn to and. And fearing this dangerous, haunted, miraculous place.
- [05:27]
C
I think that was beautifully done. Considering just how much happens in this relatively slim novel.
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B
I hope I didn't give anything away. I'm scared. I tried to really tread lately.
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C
I think you did perfect.
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A
It was exquisite.
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C
Liz, is there anything that you would add?
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A
No. Nothing.
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C
Yeah. So that's the setup of the book. Now it's a book club. We're going to dive into our feelings. And I want to ask the table. How did you feel about this book? Love it, Hate it. Feel mixed somewhere in between. I'm going to start with you first, Lauren.
- [05:56]
B
I loved it. I read it in two days. It was really difficult to put down. I think the way the mystery unfolds is really satisfying and it also flows really nicely. And what's also really special about this book is on top of all of the natural description, just the prose is graceful. It's really beautifully written. I felt very connected to the characters and yeah, I'm very excited to talk about what happens to them. But yeah, overall I felt very connected to this book and was very moved by the end.
- [06:30]
C
And I want to ask you, Liz, tell me your thoughts.
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A
Thank you, mj. I am here as the bad cop. I did not love this book.
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C
Interesting.
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A
Although I did read it also over a period of two days. And it wasn't that I wanted to put it down and walk away from it. And in fact, I need to be honest, there was nothing to put down because I was listening to it. So it's not like I wanted to fling my airpods across the room. I was held in the thrall of the book, but I did have some complaints. Normally I would use the word quibbles, but what I had here is larger than that. I did not by the romance. I did not like that one of the children's voices was so incredibly precocious. The youngest son, Orly. I don't want to pin all of my problems with the book on the narrator of the audiobook. But I do think that some of my complaints might stem from the fact that the voice of Dominic in particular is deep. And it really bothered me. I just. I couldn't stand it. I felt there were too many. I won't go into all of my issues, but I felt there were too many voices I only cared about one of them. That was Rowan. I wished the whole book had been from Rowan's perspective. And I know it's annoying when somebody complains about a book and basically says, I wish it had been a different book. That's not really what I'm saying. I. I loved the setup, and I loved the environment. And this. This haunting island that is teeming with life and yet dying at the same time. I found that really appealing. But the switching of the perspectives left me with whiplash. And Orly's role graded on me to the point where, when his section started, I found my shoulders coming up around my ears.
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C
I feel like I am in the role of debate moderator here, but I'm just gonna say. Lauren, your response?
- [08:42]
B
I will just say I've experienced many times reading a book, listening to the audiobook, and having a really big difference in my enjoyment one over the other, based on, yeah, I guess, the quality of the narration. And I haven't listened to the audiobook of this. I didn't find any of the voices grating. If anything, I actually kept thinking, and this might be a stretch of a comparison, but it kept coming to me, was the structure of As I Lay Dying. There are parallels in this book. You know, as I mentioned, Dominic Salt is a widower. One of the main sort of haunting figures in this story is his dead wife, the mother of these three children. And her voice kind of surfacing, or maybe it's his imagination, but her kind of ongoing presence. That's one of the many deaths that haunts this island. But I will just say I actually found the changes in perspective quite rewarding, I think, for plot reasons as well as artistic reasons. But this is why we have these conversations.
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A
Absolutely. Absolutely. We can agree to disagree, but, mj, you have to tell us what you think.
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C
Yeah, exactly. I think I am the main middle of you two.
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A
You're Switzerland.
- [09:56]
C
I'm Switzerland. Overall, I would say I would characterize it as I love the story and found myself very frustrated by the storytelling. I just think the setup is interesting. A mysterious woman washes a store. She has secrets. And she is stranded on an isolated island with a family. Already an interesting dynamic, but they are also grieving. That's another level of complexity. And they also have their own secrets. It's just inherently interesting. And then you see how their stories intertwine, and I was just hooked. My frustration with the storytelling is I think that while there's a lot of very beautiful nature writing and climate writing here, and there's a lot of Beautiful meditations on grief that I want to come back to. I think for propulsion and. And almost it felt like an anxiety response. Trying to keep the reader hooked. I felt like there were a lot of lines that were just like, really schlocky teasers of drama. So I have a few examples. I'm just gonna read a few. Cause I found myself, like, at first being intrigued and then just getting hit over the head with them again and again. So these are just from some of the first few pages.
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A
MJ Schlocky is really shots fired. That's a shot. A shots fired word.
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C
Am I using it?
- [11:16]
A
You're using it perfectly. But it is for somebody who.
- [11:19]
B
She's trying you on hers.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Somebody who claims to be Switzerland. That's not a Switzerland word.
- [11:24]
C
So I'll come back around to it. I'll come back around to it. But here's some of the quotes. Quote, this is a place of storms, but this storm, this one will be the worst they've endured since coming here. That's on the third page. Then we have. She loves shearwater, maybe more than any of them do. But she can see that little by little, the island is killing them. Like, I feel like you can hear the dun, dun, dun being inserted there. Next. She has always come down to the beach for pup season. Even before this inhospitable stretch of coast became her home, her escape. Even before she learned that there is a different kind of fear from the one you feel when you hold your breath. Next. Raph marvels at his dad's even keel. He is always even, always calm. Raph knows in this moment the way he sometimes knows what his sister is thinking, that Fenn is imagining the same thing he is. The sudden, calm violence Dominic Salt is capable of and the damage it can do in isolation. I think it is fine, but I feel like you're just bludgeoned with these teasers of violence or these teasers of intrigue in a way that I just didn't think we needed. Liz, though, you said that schlocky is a big word. I hope it's not too harsh for me. I was able to get over that because I was so invested and charmed by this family, by their dynamics. Part of the fun is both unraveling the mystery yourself, but then also watching other people realize that someone else is lying to them. And so I had a great time with this book. And the overall story is what helped me get over some of my frustrations with the writing.
- [12:57]
B
I'm just gonna say I was hooked by all of that, there was. You didn't even say, there's one chapter it's like halfway through that ends in it was blood. I had to go to bed at that point, and I had to just put it away. And I just. I think I accepted some level of this is. I had prepared myself for that mindset and was just hooked.
- [13:19]
C
You said, this is a mystery. And that is one of the things that this book actually made me think a lot about, which is genre. This is a mystery. And I found myself being a little bit annoyed by some of the tone, but then thinking, is this just the tone of the genre? And then thinking about other mysteries.
- [13:33]
B
It's like a crossover to me.
- [13:34]
C
But then I felt agreed. Agreed. But at the same time, like the. The literary tone, the grief meditation of it all, and then the climate fiction angle of it, I feel like that has a different tone where it's more quiet, more reflective. And so for me, those two tones didn't blend together seamlessly. And I think I bristled at. Like, I didn't dislike the book. There were things that I bristled at while reading it. And so I think that's why I'm in the middle zone. I overall really like this book, but I also felt really frustrated by this book, but I couldn't put this book down.
- [14:11]
A
Another genre that you didn't mention. And maybe other people don't think of it as a genre, but I think of this as the Sound of Music genre, where a stranger comes from far away and teaches a family something about itself.
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B
Such a good comparison, too. There's so many parallels now that you said that.
- [14:31]
A
Yes. And she says to Rowan, says to Dominic at one point, you're not hearing your kids or you're not. And remember, there's that scene in the Sound of Music where the kids obediently march out of the ballroom and Maria says to the captain, you don't even know these kids. They miss their mom. They have all the.
- [14:51]
B
And he's so emotionally closed off as Dominic.
- [14:53]
A
Yeah, so is Dominic. So I loved that bit of it. I thought that genre, insofar as it's in this book, was very successful. Like I thought, you see the fun that she has with the kids and how she learns to listen to them and help them learn something about themselves and maybe even how they've grown in the absence of their mother. So, yes, I loved the Sound of Music. Ness of it all. I did just want to put that.
- [15:20]
B
In, except instead of Nazis, it's rising water levels.
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A
Exactly.
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C
So we have very different opinions about this book. One pro, one con. Can you try to convince the other person of Liz, you mentioned Orly for instance, and his voice annoying you? My response to that is I feel like Orly is. He initially annoyed me too, especially you get that first chapter in his voice and he's like, let's open blah blah blah blah, shall we? And I'm like, what nine year old speaks like this? And then you realize it's a trick, it's that it's his voice, quote unquote. But he's reading from this encyclopedia and his voice is mimicking. So then I, it made sense after all. So for me, I was like annoyed by Orly but then came around to Orly and his perspective. That's one of my rebuttals. But like for you two, is there a pro that you feel like would convince Liz? Liz, is there a con that you feel like would convince Lauren?
- [16:22]
B
So okay, I'll say about Aurelie. I don't spend a ton of time with 9 year olds, so I actually really don't know if that's like outrageously precocious for him. The thing that sticks out to me is the way Orly is searching for this mother figure and the way, I don't think this is a spoiler. He seeks that in some subconscious way with this woman who's washed ashore. He wonders, is this what my mother would have looked like? He doesn't really remember his mother. She died around when he was born. This kind of reaching and this utter tenderness and guilelessness of the nine year old felt so full to me. Orly aside, one thing that I really want to say on behalf of this book, and I could feel it reading the prose, that this was based on something. Shearwater. The author writes in a note after the shearwater is fictional, but it is based on a real island called Macquarie Island. It's a subarctic island between Tasmania and Antarctica. And she has been there, visited this place and she actually took, she writes in, in. In this note that she, she went with her husband and her 16 month old child to this place that was both magnificent and terrifying and not meant for human life. And you can just feel in every page of this book her connection to the physical land. And I think that's a really hard thing to achieve especially because the most readers I'm gonna venture don't really have a reference point for a place like this. It's not even like Alaska. It really is the edge of the earth. And I think she conveys that so? Well, so that's my pitch to Liz.
- [18:00]
A
I totally agree. I'm gonna throw this slightly out to left field. Did you ever read from the Mixed up files of Mrs. Basilee Frankweiler?
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B
No.
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C
I think I did.
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A
It's a very old book. The author's last name, I think, is Konigsberg. E L Konigsberg. And it's a kid's book about a pair of siblings who run away. I promise this relates back, but it's about a pair of siblings who run away from home and they move into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and they live there. Like, they sleep in the fancy historical beds at night and they fish the pennies out of the fountain and use them to buy food in the cafeteria. I mean, this was written in, like, the 70s, so you could use pennies to buy lunch. But I also. When I wasn't comparing this book to the Sound of Music, I was comparing it to the Mixed Up Files because I. What I liked. I might not be following what you've asked me to do, mj, but one thing I really liked about this book was the way that we learn about living in this inhospitable world. How they're rationing their dwindling food, how they use the tools they have at their disposal, how they work with the creatures who are around them and make them part of their community in a respectful way. I wanted more of that. Like, I wanted more details about how they were stretching the food and how they were counting down the days until the big ship would come in and bring them home. That's not a spoiler. I don't think we know in the beginning that the ship is coming. And so I guess I'm both complimenting and complaining at the same time. I loved the How I Survived element to throw it back to another children's book series, the How I Survived books, which I also love, but I wanted more of that. I would have dialed down some of the interaction between the various characters and also, by the way, the many people who died on this island and dialed up the logistics of what it meant to exist there, which I found fascinating.
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B
And how that kind of rationing and paranoia and barely surviving, how that affects your mindset over time, what that does to your psychology.
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A
Yes.
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B
That was so cool.
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A
It's Castaway. Did you ever see I love this?
- [20:28]
C
I love this.
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A
Castaway is one of the greatest movies of all time. I'm on record. It's so good. I wanted more Castaway and less Little Man Tate from Orly. Am I dating myself? You guys don't even know what I'm Tate, forget it.
- [20:44]
C
I love all of this and we're going to dive in more in the second half and we'll get to all the spoilers that we've alluded to. But first, I want to share a few comments from readers because online this month we have been talking about Wild Dark Shore with the Book Review Book Club community online. Right now we have an article up on the New York Times headline Book Club Read Wild Dark shore by Charlotte McConaughey with the book Review, and people are leaving their thoughts on the novel in the comment section there. Here are a few that I loved and wanted to share. Mickey from Philadelphia writes, at this late point of life, I have appreciation and strong approval for this author's preoccupation with the likelihood of disturbance we have created for our natural world. I applaud the crusade she wages for future generations of all species that comprise the diversity and beauty we enjoy. So that's tapping into the environmental, climate, conservation aspect of this novel. Nicholas from Madison, Wisconsin writes, Wild Darkshore is more than an equal thriller with the pacing of a Dan Brown novel at its heart. It is a meditation on grief, equal parts heartbreaking and life affirming. Wild Darkshore is easily the best novel I have read all year, and that's a sentiment we heard a lot of. Easily one of the best novels. A reader who just goes by an American writing from Maryland wrote, I've read 35 books already this year and this by far is the best of the best. I've read all three of McConaughey's books. All were spectacular, but this one is profound on so many levels. If you only read one book this year, make it Wild Darkshore. Rosie from Ocean Spring writes, just simply, absolutely the best book I've read this year. But there were some dissenting opinions as well. Catherine from Evanston writes, I suspect I'm an outlier as I found this book exhausting. It felt like the canned anticipation and suspense littered with repetitive reflections. Yes, we get it. The earth is falling apart and on the brink. Are you new here? And the overall pace, at times slower than stale molasses and at others skipping over seemingly relevant details. All of it felt out of step and I couldn't wait to finish this book and move on. Way harsh, but also I think well said. So I just wanted to bring those together to say that we are divided. Readers are divided. A lot of people love this book. Some people are frustrated it with this book, but one thing I think is really cool is that love it or hate it? This book has elicited a lot of really strong opinions, so those are just some reader comments. We're going to jump back into our conversation, but first I think we should take a quick break.
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C
One sausage McMuffin with egg, please.
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A
Okay, your total is.
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C
Wait. Let's negotiate. How's about you throw in hash browns for a dollar?
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A
Well, yes sir, that price is already a dollar.
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C
Take it or leave it.
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A
Take it, I guess. Buy one, add one for a dollar.
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C
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C
And we're back. This is the Book Review Podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm talking to Lauren Christensen and Liz Egan, and we are chatting about Wild Dark shore by Charlotte McGonaghey. Before the break, we kept everything spoiler light. Now we're just going to fully dive into spoilers. Without further ado, let's dive in and talk about what happens in the second half of this book. So the reason why Rowan has come to the island is because her husband Hank was one of the scientists working at the seed vault. He sent out a distress signal and then disappeared. She is secretly trying to research and figure out what happened. Meanwhile, all of the family are hiding secrets of their own. Dominic is hiding the fact, and Rowan later discovers this he has done something with Rowan's husband. What it turns out is that Dominic has locked Hank in the seed vault because Hank assaulted Dominic's daughter, Finn. Meanwhile, Orly, hoping to protect the seeds, has cut off communication from the island. Which is bad because there's this impending storm that's approaching and that's a calamity is on the horizon. And it all comes together in this. No longer a mystery, it's just full on thriller, race against time, villain from the grave, et cetera, et cetera. And quite a lot happens. And with that out of the way I want to ask, what did you make of it? What did you make of just where the story takes us?
- [26:09]
A
I mean, Dominic definitely would have killed Hank. Knowing what we know about Dominic, that he puts a ton of. He comes from a boxing family. And rather than encourage his son Raph, to use his words, as I believe they say now, he encourages his son to punch this punching bag. And he himself has a violent streak. And so I did not for one second by the fact that he would have spared Hank's life when he found out what Hank did to his daughter.
- [26:49]
B
I wouldn't say that there was no part of me that believed he wouldn't murder him. He's a kind of tender hearted man at the bottom of it. I guess I will say I thought that all of these revelations, and there were many and they overlapped. You knew the communications had been cut off. Who did it? How was that done? You knew Hank. Hank was missing from the island and you weren't sure where he was. You also. We also have this backstory of Rowan and Hank's marriage that I think is very beautifully done. But I will say they had a very unhappy marriage. And Rowan explains this backstory that is again related to this pervasive theme in the book about procreation. Right. Like the sexual. From the seeds to bearing children and dying in the process of bearing children. It's a book that's completely concerned with life continuing on. And so a very big plot point is Rowan feeling this guilt before Hank has left for Shearwater that he wanted children and she refused to bring children into this dying, onto this dying planet. That backstory does fuel a lot of the ensuing revelations. I will disagree with that. Very eloquent commenter. I think the pacing, it worked for me. I liked the way revelations unfolded. Were they all a thousand percent, like the most elegant or airtight? No. But again, I wasn't looking for them to be. Nothing was so egregious that I was pulled out of it. I felt like the story was meant to be propulsive. I was really mostly there for all the really intense emotions that were like being elicited. And it was working on me. So that's how I feel.
- [28:42]
A
I also just wanna add another reason why Rowan doesn't want kids is because she believes she was responsible for the death of her younger brother. Right.
- [28:50]
B
It was her own family.
- [28:51]
A
Yeah. Which we see over the course of the story. Her evolution in her thinking about her own responsibility level. Should she have been left to watch this little boy when she was 13 and they were living together on a houseboat, and he ended up drowning. It felt to me at times like layer upon layer of tragedy. And then her house burned down.
- [29:16]
B
And then there's the whole thing.
- [29:17]
A
It was really moving. Like, I will say it was move. I thought Rowan's backstory was incredibly moving, but, yes. There was just so much loss.
- [29:27]
B
And I want, like, Raph's back.
- [29:28]
A
Yes.
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B
Like, Raph story.
- [29:29]
A
Poor Alex, dead and dead.
- [29:32]
B
There were a lot of threats.
- [29:33]
A
And the brother's girlfriend. Dead.
- [29:35]
B
Right.
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A
And the boat guy who drove her.
- [29:37]
B
Over, did she die?
- [29:39]
A
I think they were trying to save Alex and Raph. In that house on stone. Yes.
- [29:43]
B
In the greenhouse.
- [29:44]
C
That's.
- [29:44]
A
Yeah, yeah, dead. The guy who drove Rowan over in the boat. Dead.
- [29:49]
B
A lot of plot. There's a lot of plot.
- [29:51]
A
A lot of dead people.
- [29:52]
B
Yeah.
- [29:52]
A
I just want to say one other thing about Hank, because I just. A point in the book's big point in the book's favor is Rowan's backstory. Hank has no redeeming qualities. No.
- [30:02]
B
No irredeemable villain.
- [30:04]
A
It's like the stakes feel very low when you find him living in this depressing cell for months on end. And by the way, they give him reading material. Why?
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C
They treat him very kindly.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah. I guess maybe they felt. Maybe they had their reasons, But I didn't care about him one bit, so it wasn't like I was rooting for him. He had no redeeming qualities. It's hard for me to encounter a character in a book who just has. It's just all evil.
- [30:36]
B
Yeah, that was a bit flat.
- [30:37]
A
Yeah.
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C
I feel like, once again, I'm in the middle of you two because I felt everything that you felt. Hank was so flat. The plot just became this amalgamation of tragedies. And yet I felt myself so moved by it all. I found myself moved by Finn's consideration of everything that she has faced. I felt Raph's grief. I felt another spoiler. Rowan dies in the end. And I felt her loss so tremendously. In a way that surprised me because I was pretty frustrated by the storytelling throughout that I was like, wait, this book did something. And I kind of like that.
- [31:23]
B
Well, it's the way she dies.
- [31:24]
C
Yeah.
- [31:25]
B
She is quite literally sacrificing herself to save Orly. In this intense thriller moment, water is rising and Dom is trying to save them, but he can't get there fast enough. And she sacrifices herself. And it's dramatic, it's extremely melodramatic, but it's beautiful.
- [31:45]
C
But then also, it just made me realize Just how invested I was in this unit, coming back together as a sort of found family, which is a theme that kind of runs throughout this book of family. You choose the family you're born with. How do you lean in? Or when do you step away? And because so much plot is happening, I feel like the story lean touches on that and then goes back to a thriller aspect or a mystery aspect.
- [32:11]
A
And.
- [32:11]
C
And my emotion at Rowan's End made me realize just how effective that was, that even though we're going in and out of those threads, that Charlotte McConaughey really does have a tremendous handle on the emotional tenors of this book. And, yeah, I just. I really admired that.
- [32:34]
B
I admired also the fact that she doesn't just put all these big capital Q questions out there and then not answer them. Like, it isn't just posing, well, what are the ethics of having children and falling in love when the world is ending? She actually gives answers to these questions, and they're really bluntly but beautifully put of just, yeah, the world is ending, but we're not gonna stop loving each other, and we're not gonna stop having children. And you have this man, Dominic, who's in charge of taking care of this seed vault. But again and again, you're reminded his priority in his life, whether it's reserving diesel fuel, reserving. Just directing his energy. He. If he has to choose between the continuation of all flora on earth or his three children, he's gonna choose his three children. And that just being the answer that Charlotte McConaughey puts out there. Because we are human beings and we are animals just the way. The same way this mother whale who washes up on shore saves. All she cares about is saving her baby.
- [33:40]
A
And the wombat.
- [33:41]
B
Yes. Remember the wombat who sticks his butt.
- [33:43]
A
Up during the fire. He. Yeah, I loved that. I love how she showed the older animal's protection of its young again and again. You know, whether it was. I love that.
- [33:57]
B
There was just a lot of heart.
- [33:58]
A
There was.
- [33:59]
C
What I loved, too, though, is that she provides a really great foil. She says, look at what one parent will do and what they'll sacrifice for their kids. And then you see the kids are like. But actually, this is a prison. Like Fen and Raph being like, we want to grow up and have lives on our own, and we are being smothered here, even though we see what our dad is trying to do. And Orly really longing for this mother figure that he can't totally have because Dominic has cut himself off so tremendously. I love that, like, these big, sweeping lessons on morals felt like they were complicating each other and conflicting with each other and pushing each other. And it felt like there was a very dynamic conversation happening in this book underneath this kind of thriller storyline.
- [34:48]
B
Can I also just really quickly say I think we're making it sound rightly melodramatic and kind of like deep thoughts and whatever. It's also, there's a dry humor to a lot of it. I think there's a lot. The dialogue is really nicely done, and that could have easily. It could have easily been a really cheesy. I think maybe I'm making it sound a little cheesier than I think it actually was in execution. Like, Rowan is funny and she's sarcastic.
- [35:12]
A
She can do handy. And I loved her, which is why.
- [35:17]
B
Sorry, Liz. I did buy the love story between Rowan and Daphne.
- [35:20]
A
I did not buy the love story.
- [35:21]
C
I bought it, too. I didn't.
- [35:22]
A
Not at all. I'm a little older than you guys. I know how these things go. Mj, you just hit on exactly what. What bothered me. I didn't like the thriller part of it as much. I felt like maybe Charlotte McConaughey was getting notes from her editor saying, we wanna sell this as a thriller. We wanna shelve it here in the bookstore when I just wanted it in general fiction. Like, I didn't need the melodrama because the stakes were already there and there were so many stakes that we didn't need the thriller. Flag on the moon in addition, if that makes sense.
- [36:04]
C
I'm with you. I didn't think it needed. And that was part of my gripe, too, that we don't need those, like, really big cliffhanger teasing lines. Because in itself, the story, the stakes, the themes, the setting is interesting enough. I liked that there was that thriller arc to it, but I didn't need it dialed up to 12.
- [36:25]
A
Exactly.
- [36:26]
C
And that's how I. Yeah, so I agree with you. We are running long in this conversation and we have a fun third segment of recommendations. But before I move on, I just want to ask, are there any things that you want to mention about this book that we haven't gotten around to? Characters you particularly loved, ideas or quotes that you want to make sure are part of this conversation. I have one to give any people time to think, which is, I mentioned before, I love the nature writing and what Charlotte McConaughey is able to capture with how she writes about this island, the flora and fauna here. She does what I think all good nature and climate writing does, which is give us space and time to think and appreciate. And I think that is a signpost to the reader as well. Pay attention not just to the overall themes of climate change, to the surging tides of water that's gonna destroy this island and this base, but also just appreciate the miracle of the natural world. I loved that.
- [37:23]
A
That is beautiful. Really beautiful.
- [37:26]
C
Those are just a few of our thoughts about this book. I feel like we could talk about this book all day and unfortunately we're running out of time. But before we go, I wanted to make sure we shared some book recommendations. I'm gonna keep this recommendation segment very broad. I just wanna know Liz Lauren, what would you recommend readers pick up after reading Wild Darkshore? That could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe this is another mystery set on an island. Maybe this is another isolated grieving family story. Maybe this is another book about the climate. Maybe there's more eco thrillers or eco fiction that you want to recommend. I defer to you. I just want to know what would you recommend readers pick up next?
- [38:01]
A
I would recommend Stonyard Devotional by Charlotte.
- [38:05]
C
Wood and reviewed by one Lauren Christensen for the book review.
- [38:08]
A
That's right. I probably picked it up based on your stellar review. It's a novel about a woman in Australia who goes to live at a convent. It also has a climate element to it and a wildlife element to it involving a mouse infestation in the convent. And it's incredibly moving and I think Charlotte Wood resisted any urge to turn it into anything other than just a really beautiful, thoughtful meditation on the passage of time. I'm comparing apples and Oranges. It's not really a perfect comparison, but there are elements between these two books that are similar and wonderful.
- [38:55]
C
I would say the apples and oranges are clued by the titles. Stonyard Devotional is a devotional Wild Dark Shore is wild and Dark. Absolutely tackle similar theme.
- [39:07]
A
Absolutely.
- [39:09]
C
What about you Lauren?
- [39:10]
B
So I kept thinking while reading this book of another one that actually I know the three of us read a couple years ago Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood. It is also I guess a psychological thriller. So it does have a similar pace feel this is about a guerrilla gardening collective. Also very much an eco thriller except there's this tech billionaire kind of overlord. The plot is different but it's climate minded mystery thriller. Another book that I was thinking of which is not at all a thriller in tone is Elizabeth o' Connor's Whale Fall, which is a book similarly set on a very remote sparsely Populated island, this one off the coast of Wales. And it's about a sort of small, insular family and newcomers that arrive to sort of disrupt the everyday normalcy that they have come to experience. It's quite meditative, it's very ethereal. A lot of nature description. It's short, it's beautiful.
- [40:10]
C
Love that book. And that is also similar to one of my book recommendations, which is Clear by Carys Davies, which I feel like you could put Clear Whalefall and Wild Darkshore next to each other. Take their covers, frame them. They're like this perfect triptych because they are all books about people isolated on an island. A stranger somehow washes ashore, comes ashore. But then also they all feature these like beautiful paintings of like waves cresting. But Clear is about a man who is sent to this remote island to evict the last tenant there. And he is this like mountain man, shepherd, who's been living alone because everyone else has left. But the man who arrives gets in this terrible accident, is knocked out cold and is brought back to health by this man. And they form a really deep relationship. Meanwhile, he has the secret he has to evict this man. He also has a wife, but then he's forming this relationship. But just like someone washes ashore, there are secrets. But also we are very deeply invested in the developing relationships between the people that are stuck together. Very similar between all of them.
- [41:25]
B
Can I just point out, and I'm just gonna leave this here. We have all named books that are Commonwealth books. We have Scotland, we have New Zealand, we have Australia, we have Wales. Just gonna put that there. Listeners can read.
- [41:41]
A
I noticed that.
- [41:41]
B
Yeah.
- [41:42]
C
I have one other one that brings us to the United States of America and that is this Other Eden by Paul Harding. And Paul Harding is just one of my all time favorite writers. I mentioned before the idea of good climate fiction and good nature writing. Letting you just sit in a feeling or a thought. That's what Paul Harding does, but with these like very deep emotional resonances. You sit in grief, you sit in longing. You sit in isolation. This Other Eden is set on an island in Maine and there is a colony of mixed race people living there and they are being evicted. And you follow a variety of the residents of this island. You follow, I think, one of the men who come to evict them. And it's just beautiful, it's just moving. And it opens with this alone is worth the price of entry. It opens with this beautiful set piece of this island being flooded and the water's rising up and There's a family climbing up this tree and one person is holding this flag. And it just. It's this beautiful, beautiful image. And Paul Harding writes these moving, heartbreaking, evocative novels. And this other Eden in just the portrait of an isolated community on an island facing a tremendous change, I think makes me think of Wild Dark Shore. Different tones. One is quiet, meditative, literary. This is wild, dark. But I think they pair very nicely together. And then two others that I just wanted to mention. We have to mention the Orva story. We cannot talk about a book about climate change and nature without mentioning Richard Powers. And then Wild by Sheryl Strait came to mind. I don't know. That's a book about nature and grief. Nature and grief.
- [43:34]
A
It absolutely is.
- [43:34]
C
I love that book. I went through a very big Cheryl Strait face.
- [43:37]
B
I never read it.
- [43:38]
A
I never read the Richard Powers. I'm ashamed to say that's the beauty.
- [43:42]
C
Of a book club that came away with a reading list.
- [43:43]
A
I read Wilde twice at different phases of my life. It's really good and I liked the movie, but the book is much better.
- [43:50]
C
We have our marching orders. Lauren, go read Wild. Liz, go read the Overstory readers. Read anything that you haven't read so far. That is, unfortunately, all the time that we have for today. I just want to say, Liz, Lauren, thank you so much. This is really fun.
- [44:05]
A
Thank you so much. This was really fun.
- [44:07]
C
I also want to say thank you to anyone who has read with us online. Please keep up the conversation again. We have an article up on the New York Times website headlined Book Club read Wild Dark Shore with the Book Review. So go chat with other readers there. But as promised, we are going to reveal our September book club pick. In September, the Book Review Book Club will be reading Pride and prejudice by one Jane Austen. This year, 2025 would have been Jane Austen's 250th birthday. Because of that, there are a lot of celebrations about Austen and for Austen and of Austen going around all over the world. And we wanted to join in on the fun by reading one of her most beloved books for book club. We hope you'll join us. Right now there's an article up. I bet you can guess the headline. Structure Book Club read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with the Book Review. Join the conversation there. We will also be discussing the book on the podcast that airs on September 26th. We can't wait to discuss this novel with you. And until then, happy reading. That was M.J. franklin, Liz Egan and Lauren Christensen in conversation for a monthly book club discussion talking about Wild Darkshore. I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review. Have a happy end of your summer.