Move Like Water

July 1, 2023
Stowe seeks to give readers an ocean they can hold in their hands. The author, a writer, painter, and sailor who lives in Germany, opens this lovely memoir with her description of a young girl at night's "ink hours" watching a nearby Welsh lighthouse by the Pembrokeshire coast cast its light in her darkened room. "There was never a time when I did not know the sea," which would frequently "shape my studies, paintings, words." She became familiar with the local seabirds, jellyfish, seals, dolphins, a basking shark, and harbor porpoise. Stowe feels "as if I had absorbed the shape of the land, the water, into my bones." Sadly, she has also deeply felt the negative impact humans have on her precious seascape and wildlife. After school, she wanted her own "odyssey," an "entirely different space" in her mind. In one adventure, Stowe takes us onboard a ship roiling about, rain lashing down in a "Mephistophelian chaos." It's a small sailing boat-turned-floating laboratory, conducting research on bottlenose whale populations on the east coast of Canada. "I felt rather than saw my first sperm whale," she writes. She capably conveys the awesomeness of its size as well as the fact that it exhales as it dives and can accumulate tons of carbon. The author also recounts how, during college, she suffered a severe back injury that resulted in excruciating pain, making sailing difficult. Nonetheless, she bought a boat, named it Brave, and ventured out like a wandering albatross to Pembrokeshire. She decided her dissertation would consist of an ambitious visual survey of the local animals, and she worked hard to pass her Yachtmaster exam. Her incisive discussion of humpback whales vocalizing and sound pollution is fascinating. For Stowe, "there was hardly a minute of time on land when my mind did not drift to the sea." Nature lovers and sailors will savor Stowe's personal, thoughtful, science-filled voyages.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 10, 2023
Stowe immerses readers in the sights, sounds, and rhythms of the ocean in her spellbinding debut. She begins by recounting her childhood on the Welsh coast, characterized by walks along a shore studded with sea glass, mermaid’s purses, and hag stones, then loosely traces her development as a sailor, from working on a tourist boat to joining research expeditions while she pursued a degree in marine biology. Each chapter revolves around a sea creature, which Stowe shares research about before weaving in her own experiences: for example, a fascinating introduction to matrilineal sperm whales turns into a stirring meditation on the women, including her grandmother and scientists Rachel Carson and Sylvia Earle, who have inspired her. In a chapter on the albatross, Stowe braids the perilous, transoceanic journeys the giant birds undertake each year with her own against-all-odds struggle to recover from a spinal injury. “By stars and birds, wave and whale,” Stowe finds her way across choppy waters while encouraging readers to reassess their own relationships with the sea. The result is an unforgettable plunge into the passions of an extraordinary storyteller. Agent: Jessica Woollard, David Higham Assoc.

September 1, 2023
"There was never a time when I did not know the sea," Stowe writes at the start of her memoir, a briny love story of sorts. Growing up in a coastal city in Wales, she found solace in water at an early age. Swimming, surfing, and sailboating were preferred activities, but her interests also include observation of aquatic animals (especially whales), traveling, scientific research, and painting. She spent time aboard research ships, purchased and restored a boat, attended a university, and suffered a back injury that required surgery and additional treatments. Stowe's life becomes dominated by two competing forces, the call of the sea and the restrictions demanded by her aching back. Pain becomes her "curious companion" and generates new perspectives, vulnerability, and fear. Stowe highlights how the health of oceans is threatened as they turn warmer, more acidic, and more polluted. Human fragility and healing are juxtaposed with the vastness and indifference of the sea. Stowe wistfully explores the mysteries of water as she navigates the sometimes turbulent, often rousing flow of her life.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.