One Boat

A woman reflects on her life after the deaths of her parents in the introspective latest from Buckley (Tell). Corporate lawyer Teresa travels from her home in England to a Greek town after her father dies. Nine years earlier, in the wake of her mother’s death, she went to the same place. In her journal, Teresa recounts the earlier trip and describes reencounters with the same inhabitants. Among them are Niko, the younger diving instructor she had a fling with the first time around, who’s now married (“Representations of the gymnastics would be ridiculous; of the sensations, impossible,” she writes about the sex they had during her earlier visit). She also befriended Petros, a surly mechanic who has since published a book of poems, which the other locals ridicule (“He is good with cars. That is what he should do,” one of them remarks). Teresa, however, sees an allure in the work’s simplicity (“The poem was like a tuning fork”). The series of reunions begin to offer Teresa a sense of closure, not only for her losses but for the lingering impact of the earlier visit on her life. The fluid storytelling and the subtlety of Teresa’s observations leave an understated but lasting impression. There’s much to treasure in this quiet novel. (Nov.)