Max's final days with Anna were awkward; Max does not know how to act with his soon-to-be-dead wife.

The strands mesh because in this novel we are traveling the memories and histories of the Indian Ocean. Strout exquisitely captures what it is to be human in these challenging times, such as what it means to be family, of being a mother to 2 precious adult daughters with their own issues, Chrissy's miscarriages, the crumbling of Becka's marriage to the poet Trey and its impact on William as he reflects upon and regrets his past infidelities. When he learns the proposed interpreter is Latif Mahmud, Saleh realises that they are already bound together by an intricate series of events which brought about the downfall of Latif’s family and the imprisonment of Saleh.

William is my first husband; we were married for twenty years and we have been divorced for about that long as well.

I was used to officials who glared and spluttered at you for the smallest mishap who toyed with you and humiliated you for the sheer pleasure of wielding their hallowed authority. Here, in the tropical winds, a civilization stretches from Mogadishu to Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, Pemba, Zanzibar—the whole of the East African coast, all the way to the Comoros and Madagascar. Skin is, after all just a few layers of protein, carbohydrates, water and gunk that cover each and every one of us – but it’s not who we are, we don’t need to know what Lucy looks like.At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we're apart--the pain of a beloved daughter's suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love. PM Plus Storybooks feature a classic story structure with tension, climax and resolution to engage young readers. Max finishes with a redaction of himself standing in the sea after Anna's death (an allegory is made between crashing waves and tumultuous periods of his life). I was not sure why, but I know I would do as I was told because the advice had a crafty ring to it, the kind of resourceful ruse the powerless would know.