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  • Archipelago: A Novel by Monique Roffey
  • Christopher B. Field
Monique Roffey. Archipelago: A Novel. New York: Penguin, 2013. 360p.

The driving force behind the plot in Monique Roffey’s novel Archipelago comes as the protagonist, Gavin Weald, tries to comfort his daughter Océan as she is screaming herself awake because she hears rain falling outside. It is in this moment [End Page 119] that Gavin “knows what to do, how to save them” (17). The mystery of what Gavin is saving himself and his daughter from is slow to unfold, as Roffey deftly drops hints throughout the novel of a “flood” that has changed their lives in irrevocable ways while delaying the full exposition of the event. Gavin’s solution is to set sail on his boat, Romany, on a voyage from their home in Trinidad to the archipelago of the Galapagos Islands. This archipelago, which gives the novel its title, is a dominant metaphor for the novel. As Roffey skillfully reveals the traumatic circumstances which lead Gavin and Océan to flee Trinidad, it becomes increasingly apparent that the archipelago takes on a metaphorical significance.

The theme of traumatic exposure in the novel is readily apparent, despite the delayed revelation of the circumstances regarding the trauma. While the word “trauma” comes from the Greek word for “wound,” it is important to keep in mind that psychological trauma in its current usage really means a return to the wound. Roffey depicts this constant urge to return to the wound through Océan’s panic attacks and Gavin’s flashbacks. At the beginning of the novel, Océan is depicted as being able to “sob for a whole night, not eat for days, throw tantrums which spin themselves from nowhere. Or spin themselves from her new fear, the rain which bounds down from the hills” (6). What starts as a description of a particularly difficult--though not necessarily abnormal—six year old child who throws fits and refuses to eat quickly takes on increased significance with the introduction of the “rain which bounds down from the hills.” The specificity of this fear suggests that it is born of an event that she has experienced. This, coupled with a scene in which Gavin is caught outside of the house in a rain storm, but he can still hear “From inside the house…louder than the rain, the screaming of his little girl” (15), are strong indicators that Océan is suffering from PTSD stemming from a traumatic event which is recalled through the trigger of the rain. Gavin also shows signs of PTSD through the unwelcome flashbacks to the event that intrude upon his thoughts. These flashbacks also provide readers with the steady revelation of additional clues to help them piece together the narrative of the traumatic event. What starts with oblique references to a “flood” (13) that leaves him feeling that “all his strength is ungluing and stretching and he can feel himself going stringy, like he could just come apart” (4) eventually gives way to a complete revelation of the storm that led to the flood that wiped away his home in Trinidad the previous year, and which killed his infant son and caused his wife, Claire, to disappear into a deep depression that results in a near comatose state. Gavin remembers the vivid details of this flood as he “turned in time to see the concrete garden wall break open…the wave of water like an athlete taking a hurdle, landing tight and then springing forward, racing towards them” (236). When he finally finds his son, Alexander, who had been sleeping in a bedroom, he finds “his tiny body lifeless [End Page 120] and his clothes brown with mud, face down” (239). Gavin, troubled by the fact that “the flood had no meaning, no order” (244) attempts to restore order to his life through his voyage with Océan.

It might, at first, seem counterintuitive to try to recover from a traumatic event stemming from an exposure to water by surrounding oneself completely with water; however, Gavin’s and Océan’s quest to recover from the traumatic event by setting sail aboard Romany serves an...

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