Cruise ship novel stays afloat on uneven keel

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This article was published 21/08/2021 (1855 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hot off the heels of his debut novel, 2020’s After Elias, Vancouver’s Eddy Boudel Tan’s follow-up novel is an uneven seafaring adventure set on a gorgeous luxury liner.

The Rebellious Tide centers on Sebastien Goh, a young and hot-tempered man living with his mother in Quebec. Sebastien’s mother Ruby came by boat to Canada from Singapore with his father Kostas Kourakis, who quickly abandoned the young pregnant woman in the unfamiliar country. Sebastien has heard short snippets about the man but has never actually known him, nor has his father made any attempt to connect with Sebastien or reconnect with Ruby.

After his mother’s death, Sebastien resolves to track down his father and confront him. Kostas is quite easy to find; a quick search through social media reveals that he has a wife, two other children and is the captain of the luxury liner the Glacier, which sails all over Europe. Though he keeps his connection to the captain a secret, Sebastien gets a job onboard as a photographer and quickly befriends other members of the crew, soon learning that life onboard the Glacier is not as idyllic as it at first seems.

The staff and crew of the ship are separated into heavily stratified classes — the cleaning and maintenance crew are at the very bottom, with wait staff and those who interact with the rich guests enjoying more privilege, and then the ship’s militaristic crew being the very top of the social order. After stopping an officer from assaulting a member of the staff, Sebastien’s new friend Dominic is fired and evicted from the ship. This injustice leads Sebastien into sparking a full-on revolt against the ship’s ruling officers and pitting him directly against his father, who has nothing but contempt for the rebellious underlings who dare reach beyond their station.

The novel’s strength is the character of Sebastien, though the details of his earlier life and struggles in Quebec have more depth than the main conflict onboard the Glacier. Ruby and Sebastien’s bond formed by struggling against a heavily stratified society is compelling and propels the rest of the plot.

Aside from a strong protagonist, there is some clumsy plotting which does not work in the novel’s favour. Sebastien is certainly the main perspective character, as the narrative bounces from the events on the Glacier to flashbacks of Sebastien’s earlier life and his problems with anger and his hometown’s refusal to accept him and his mother. But because Sebastien is the leader of the staff revolt, large sections of what he is doing on the ship are left out so that readers will be surprised by the rebellion’s next moves.

The narrative does swing into the perspectives of some other characters for short sections, but to little narrative effect. Characters other than Sebastien, especially the villainous officers, have little nuance and so their perspectives offer very little insight into the dynamics between the officers and the staff.

Late in the novel there is a brief dovetailing of Sebastien’s new life onboard the Glacier and his previous experiences in Quebec, when his high school friend and former lover Sophie finds her way on board. Her appearance on the ship, looking for Sebastien, is a bit of a stretch, but it’s also of no significant importance — the events of the plot would be virtually the same if she did not appear at all.

Coming so quickly after his successful debut, it’s possible that The Rebellious Tide could have benefitted from more time. But there is certainly enough here for readers to understand why Eddy Boudel Tan is a rising star in CanLit.

Keith Cadieux is a Winnipeg writer and editor.