“The Palace at the End of the Sea” by Simon Tolkien

Theo Sterling is a boy who feels caught between his ambitious father, who manufactures women’s fashions, and his religiously devout mother, who escaped revolutionary Mexico after seeing her parents murdered by partisans. Theo’s father is desperately trying to leave his Jewish roots (and parents) behind, while his mother seems desperately trying to find hers in her Catholic faith. 

It's the late 1920s, and what Theo himself wants to do more than anything is run track, in which he excels at in school and is encouraged by his coach. His father is determined that Theo will quit school at 14 and join him in the business, which is what happens until the Great Depression intervenes.

 

His father’s business is failing with the times, until a strike essentially finishes it. It becomes something of a mortal blow for Theo’s father, and the boy and his mother are left destitute, until rescued by a former friend of his mother’s, a rescue that includes marriage and a move to England. Theo has known middle-class respectability, lower-class poverty, and now upper-class wealth and privilege. His stepfather has both ancestors and property in Spain, and Theo will soon be introduced to a new kind of conflict – the rumblings of the Spanish Civil War.

 

Simon Tolkien

The Palace at the End of the Sea by Simon Tolkien is part coming-oof-age novel, part historical novel, and completely an enthralling story set in the late 1920s and 1930s. Through the life of an American boy and teen, Tolkien tells several stories – the New York garment trade, the Great Depression, upper-class Britain with its famous schools and emphasis upon sports, and Spain spinning towards the brink of chaos and war. Theo Sterling must learn to navigate all of it.

 

It should be noted that this is Part 1 of Theo’s story. Part 2, The Room of Lost Steps, will be published in September.

 

Tolkien previously published five novels: No Man’s Land, Orders from Berlin, The King of Diamonds, The Inheritance, and Final Witness. A graduate in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, he worked as a barrister London, specializing in criminal defense. A grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, he’s a director of the Tolkien Estate and served as a series consultant for the Amazon TV series “The Rings of Power.” He lives with his family in southern California.

The Palace at the End of the Sea is a thoroughly engaging story. Tolkien captures the bewilderment, disappointment, anger, and maturing of a teenaged boy exactly right. And telling that boy’s story against the dramatic backdrop of the 1930s heightens and deepens both the boy’s experience and that of the times.  

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Britain: MPs should not have to declare their religious beliefs – James Bundy at The Critic Magazine.

 

Hick’s Hall: The Original Middlesex Sessions House – A London Inheritance.

 

Great Moments in Maine Real Estate: Harrington Edition – Sippican Cottage.

 

What You’re Really Hungry For – Spencer Klavan at The Free Press on Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

 

Zen and the Art of Bear Spotting – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.