The stock market crash of 1929 figures as the critical turning point in the lives of some of the characters in Anita Shreve’s Sea Glass (2002).

Honora and Sexton Beecher marry in June of 1929 and move into an abandoned house on the beach, near a New England mill town. There, in lieu of rent, the young couple will act as caretakers and fix up the property. Sexton is a typewriter salesman, filled with go-getter enthusiasm about the future, confident of his ability to be a success in business. His sales increase substantially in the summer of 1929, so much so that when offered a chance to buy the house they are living in, he seizes it, even though it means going into debt. While Sexton is at work, Honora spends time collecting sea glass that has washed up on the shore. Here she meets Vivian, a socialite from Boston, who is living in a nearby cottage, owned by her lover, Dickie, a member of her social set.

When the crash occurs, Dickie loses everything, and Vivian, whose wealth is not affected by the market, buys the cottage. Sexton loses his job and, defaulting on a loan, his car, the key to his identity as a salesman. Plunged in despair, he takes a job at a local cotton mill. Sexton becomes involved with a major strike of the mill in town, and the house becomes the headquarters for the strike leaders. The strike action pulls everyone together, except Honora and Sexton, as their relationship deteriorates further. Meanwhile Honora and McDermott, another of the strike leaders, fall in love, although neither acknowledges feelings for the other. In McDermott’s care is a boy, Alphonse, a waif trying to help his widowed mother. The strikers’ victory proves to be short-lived, as the mill closes. In the violent conclusion, Sexton’s irresponsibility triggers a tragedy, leaving Honora, Vivian, and Alphonse to put together the pieces of their old life, like the shards of sea glass on the beach.

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