Sea Change
by Jenny Pattrick

Jenny Pattrick’s novel Sea Change is set on the Kāpiti Coast in the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami, a departure from the writer’s more typical historical narratives. It contemplates a worrying, unstable future in the face of changing coasts and climates, while asserting a resolute belief in the power of human resourcefulness and community.

The premise is not unfamiliar: a group of misfits and outsiders in a small community, isolated from the world, must unite in a fight for survival against dual adversaries, Mother Nature and human nature. The novel is also highly topical, addressing contemporary issues that will only grow in relevance and urgency as our nation and planet are increasingly impacted by climate instability.

The moment of the tsunami’s impact, as observed by one of the key characters, Dylan, whose home is perched high on the hillside above the village, is eloquently delivered:

A great rolling surge of dark water wells up over the seawall and pours into Jacks Road, swirling around buildings and the beautiful hall, leaving a small island for those standing outside the church, swamping the railway line and highway, and rising when it hits the escarpment, spreading sideways; bundling cars and even the fish and chip caravan with it. When the unending mighty volume of water reaches the barricading slips north and south, the backwash shoots into the air and heads back to the village, searching for more low-lying homes and gardens. It is met, spectacularly, by a second wave. Random gouts of foamy sea burst upward like a wild family of geysers. The village becomes a heaving soup of murky water that finally settles into an ominous lake. Goodness knows what – or who – lies under it. Or how it might ever disperse.

The powers-that-be – covertly influenced by greedy and unscrupulous local landowner and engineering mogul, Adrian Stokes – determine that Managed Retreat is the most expedient solution to the settlement’s isolation. But some choose to remain, fending for themselves in the crippled remains of the village, sharing food and resources, and devising ingenious ways to restore essential services such as electricity, internet, and water.

The (unnamed) settlement is an affectionate tribute to the people and place of Paekākāriki, located on the narrow coastal plain between the Akatarawa Ranges and the Tasman Sea: this has been Pattrick’s treasured holiday home since her early childhood. In her brief introduction to the novel on her website, Pattrick points out that ‘Paekākāriki inhabitants have a reputation for being creative, alternative and often argumentative when it comes to local body laws: so good material for a novel.’

While there is certainly a degree of selective convenience about the diversity of talents and identities Pattrick distributes among the remainers, each of the characters here brings their own charm and function to the story. Lorna Firth, the self-appointed chronicler of the community’s ongoing survival, provides one of the narrative’s most sustained and insightful points of view. In her own words ‘a crabby old recluse,’ Lorna has retired to the village from an unfulfilled professional life, her early political promise blighted after she was vilified in the media for a rape accusation against a male cabinet minister. In the wake of the tsunami, barriers break down between her and other residents, in particular the blind but highly competent Toddy, a retired marine engineer, and the traumatised small boy Eru. Lorna gradually finds her voice, and a pathway back to human relationships.

Eru’s father Nathan, caught fishing at sea when the wave strikes, is the only local fatality in the catastrophe. Although it is universally acknowledged that he was not a good parent, he was loved, and the decision is made to bury him in the old urupā, which still sits intact on a knoll above the new waterline. Although Nathan is not of the local iwi, this means he can remain close to his son. The burial, described in simple and evocative language, offers the shattered community a unifying ritual:

Amity is at the water’s edge, calling them down, her high wailing words a lament not only for Nathan but also for the devastated village. Nathan’s casket is laid in his battered boat, Bobby-M’s old guitar atop it. … Eru sits, gripping the casket, while the pall-bearers – Gus, Toddy, Bobby-M, Manu and two rangatahi – guide the boat across, wading chest deep until they reach the shallow water on the other side. … Eru stands quietly beside Toddy as Manu recites a karakia and the rangatahi shovel sand over the coffin. When all is covered, the two lads walk … up to the great Norfolk pine and tie red, yellow and green streamers – supplied by the arts co-op – to the lower branches. The villagers on the other side cheer when the ribbons catch the wind and ripple out to sea as if guiding Nathan’s soul on to Hawaiki.

Everyone who is anyone in the community of remainers steps up. Ginger-haired Gus, the enigmatic but kindly man who is a semi-official carer for both Toddy and Eru and, very fortuitously, an enthusiastic homebrewer, gradually emerges as the leader of the group. Dot and Flo, the inseparable and often comedic female plumbing duo, work tirelessly to address the problem of a fresh water supply. Dylan Thomas (Not the Poet), a troubled but gifted young recluse, overcomes his social anxiety to evolve a series of inspired solutions to the town’s issues of energy and connectivity, and to provide an unlikely haven on his hillside for Maryam, the beautiful Afghan doctor who is escaping her own world of grief.

As many in our geologically volatile country have experienced firsthand, seismic shifts are transformative, both literally and figuratively, bringing not only destruction but unforeseen growth. In the days and months after the disaster, the characters of Sea Change develop in different ways, the narrative’s shifting points of view providing insight into both their vulnerabilities and their strengths. It is this human possibility for evolution, for positive adaptation on both a personal and a societal level when faced with enormous challenges, which provides one of the most compelling themes of the book.

The account of the aging Lorna’s struggles, both physical and psychological, to deal with all that the situation demands of her, is written with tenderness and authenticity, and she develops into a character of real complexity and depth. Toddy’s actions demonstrate his courage and wisdom, but also his gentleness, which allows Lorna’s to gradually return. This is epitomised in an early interaction between the two, when Lorna ‘smiles but realising – again – that he can’t read her face, she lightly touches his big hand, which lies palm up on the table like an open, weathered shell.’ Crucially too, independent Toddy accepts the help he does need, developing a very credible bond with Eru.

Other characters do not always quite achieve or maintain this credibility. It beggars belief, for example, that Jason, the lawyer handily included among the remainers, manages to: a) keep his cell phone charged; b) hack into the absent Adrian’s internet; and c) continue to work from his electric car for two months after the quake without feeling the need to mention this to anyone else. At times, the depiction of the cast of colourful characters veers rather close to caricature. Serena Andrews, aka Mimosa, is a spectacular case in point: she is a ‘peroxide blonde’ pole dancer with ‘plumply Botoxed’ lips and ‘monstrously curving false black eyelashes’, who arrives on the beach in ‘a figure-hugging white dress, a feather boa and sparkling crimson high heels’ to attempt to reclaim her birth-child, Eru. The community’s carpenter Bobby-M, a guitar-strumming, weed-toking Rastafarian ‘in snaking dreadlocks, holey black singlet, faded shorts and bare feet,’ who is rather gormlessly smitten by Mimosa, is another who never quite transcends stereotype.

Among all these irrepressible and unarguably entertaining characters, though, it is the figure of Adrian Stokes, the novel’s antagonist, whose portrayal I found problematic. Of course, the real world is crowded with Adrians – immorally wealthy, entitled business tycoons who manipulate influence and privilege to gain profit and advantage, invariably at the expense of those who are least able to fight back. And Adrian is a key player, without whose evil machinations the tale of collective fortitude and creativity might lose narrative momentum, and devolve into merely an inspirational DIY Survival Manual – though a warning on the book’s dedication page does point out this is emphatically not its function. No, Adrian needs to be there, just as (it later transpires) his Very French, culinarily brilliant wife Francine does;. But the wicked Adrian’s motivations are so transparent, and his trappings of power and wealth so consistently and calculatedly articulated, that little space is left in the reader’s imagination for a more nuanced and believable version of villainy to take shape.

While characters in Sea Change may occasionally struggle to convince, the novel’s specific setting and situation are utterly, absolutely believable. New Zealand and the Pacific region’s genetic tendency toward earthquakes and tsunamis, along with the growing incidence of floods and slips and sea incursions precipitated by climate change, mean the cutting off of entire communities in a disaster is not only feasible, but predictable. Regrettably, it is also predictable that in the wake of such a catastrophe there will be those who seek to exploit the ensuing decision-making processes for their own gain. And there will be those in leadership who prove unfit or unable to take on the challenges their office demands, as well as those who are susceptible to corruption or coercion along the way. Some things will always be with us.

What is not so easily predicted is how we ourselves, and those around us, will react and respond to such a crisis. In Sea Change, Pattrick offers a gently optimistic answer, and an entertaining exploration of the human qualities and skills that may ultimately prove to be of most value, as well as a clear-eyed view of what kind of scum may rise to the surface, in times of great turmoil and change. Above all, despite its thought-provoking premise, Sea Change is a feel-good celebration of what the people of this mixed and muddled nation of ours can achieve with ingenuity, determination, and a regular supply of homebrewed beer.