Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand

Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand


The only LeGuin book I've read that wasn't science fiction or fantasy. Each chapter is about a different person living in a tiny town on the northwest Pacific U.S. coast. Some chapters are in the first person, some in the third, some set in the present, some in the past. Most seem to be about women supporting their ne-er-do-well husbands, or asserting their independence from more successful husbands, and there's
at least one lesbian couple, and a single retired librarian. There's a man who has coped with mental illness all his life, who seems to be doing all right as long as he doesn't have to interact with anyone.

The chapters are linked by a few interactions between the people in the village, but mainly each chapter is independent, and I get the impression that each one was written separately and only later linked together by putting them all into the same town.

Well-written, as are all her books, but perhaps a little confusing to the reader.