The Sea

Max Morden, a retired art historian, narrates the novel as a reflective journal. He is trying to reconcile himself to the deaths of people he loved as a child and as an adult. His writing keeps returning to three settings: a childhood summer spent around the Graces, a wealthy family renting a house called the Cedars; the months before the death of his wife, Anna; and the present, in which he has gone back to stay at the Cedars after losing her. The three strands are cut together throughout the book.