Wow. Just wow! I was completely surprised by how much I loved this book! In November 2021 my book club read Under the Whispering Door, also by T.J. Klune and while I liked it, it was.... a little weird. While we were discussing it we found out that he had written another book, The House on the Cerulean Sea. Someone read out the description and the idea of a home for orphans was more appealing to me that a coffee shop for dead people not quite ready to transfer to a new realm (Seriously - Whispering door is weird). I had also heard that this book was based on the Residential School ideology and I was interested to see whether or not I could find the connections. I knew that I was expected to expect the unexpected when I dove in to the Cerulean Sea (this is my second unintentional pun today haha) but I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did!
As a simple summary, Linus, a case worker in charge of ensuring the proper treatment of magical youth who are living in government run orphanages, is tasked with visiting a very top secret home for four weeks and reporting back frequently about what he finds while there. Like Whispering Door, the main character is a middle aged gay man who is lonely, has low self-esteem and leads what many would call a pretty dull life, is brought to an unusual home filled with unusual people, must acclimate to an "other worldly" lifestyle and challenge all preconceived notions about how life really works. In this book, Linus meets a group of magical orphans, one of which is particularly terrifying, and comes to love them for the weird little beings they are. When time is up and he must return home and report back on his findings he must make some difficult choices - some which might change his life and the lives of everyone living in the house on the Cerulean Sea.
I have a thing for books about adoption and fostering. There are very few books I have read in this sub genre of many other genres (memoir, history, fiction...) that I have not absolutely loved. This book is no exception. Despite being filled with the weirdest little characters, I couldn't help but fall in love with these 6-13 ish year old children who have gone through a very tough life so far and are finally in a place where they are loved, where they can explore their interests and are seen as highly valued members of this unusual little family. The difficulty they have faced growing up is not over, transitioning into adulthood will be challenging for these youth, just like any child growing up outside of their own home and family. This story leaves readers with some hope though, that the love they have received while in this home may continue or be carried with them throughout life. I think that in most cases that is really what foster carers want, to have a lasting impact on a child by being there for them during a really difficult part of their life. They know they can't fix the past, and the future remains uncertain, but a good foster carer wants to do everything they can from the moment a child enters their life onward.
As far as comparisons to Residential Schools and present day CFS (child and family services/foster care) cases I found a few connections:
- Linus is given very little information about the children he is about to meet much like overworked social workers today have missing files, too many files or not enough information in files to make important decisions about the care of children.
- The house on the Cerulean Sea is somewhere between a group home and an institution. While the children have created their own family within the system, they understand that they are very unlikely to be adopted and are being raised in the system, much like children in CFS today.
- There is definitely some prejudice/racism that takes place in the town near by the house, and the children are separated from society by a boat ride. This is a pretty accurate connection to residential schools which were often ignored or disliked by neighbouring communities and were not easy to reach because the idea of isolation and being separated from family was key to the plan of assimilation. In general, this idea of segregation - reserves, residential schools, low income housing complexes etc would be a direct connection to the secluded house on the sea.
- Linus's bosses, known as"upper management", make the decisions based on reviews from social workers, but do not spend time interacting with children who are in the system. I would say that this also mirrors the current government system.
There may have been some other connections or metaphors within the story that I missed, but I can see where people might claim this book is an opportunity to consider the treatment of Indigenous people in Canada in the past, but even more so, this treatment continues today. The point of residential schools was not to raise children but to assimilate Indigenous people and commit genocide. I would not say that the children in this story were really being treated the way that Indigenous children in residential schools but there are definitely some similarities between both residential schools and what many would say is the "present day version of residential schools", namely: CFS. I think that saying this book is "like residential schools" would be highly offensive to residential school survivors, but I have a feeling that this wasn't what the author was really going for. I think that Klune wanted to give us the opportunity to consider our perceptions and treatment of children who are different and what care of orphans or children in need could/should look like going forward.
This book is unusual. It has some really strange things going on. It also shares some pretty amazing lessons and messages. You can't read this book and not feel some immense emotions. It is beautiful, it is extremely well written and it is very hard to put down. This is a book you have to take a chance on because it is not like other mainstream books, but I think that you will be pleasantly surprised by this amazingly odd book.