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Joe agrees to ask no questions of this very private woman.
The story is told from each persons point of view in alternating sequences.
It is easy to follow, and written in a Hemmingway-esque style of simplicity.
The vivid imagery sticks with you; the colors of the sunset on the beach where they walk, holding hands in a loose relationship in which lack of commitment, rather than commitment, is the glue that holds them together.
It is not because they do not care about each other.
Quite the opposite, although the reader sometimes experiences the same anxiety that the characters feel about that very question.
It is frustrating of course, to be with someone whose only promise is not to promise anything, and whose only request is not to request anything.
But you get to watch the challenges from an intimate view that beset this couple.
You experience the same tension they do.
You watch them learn and grow from this rather unusual agreement that they have formed.
Both characters have a past, of course.
They both have relationships which have left them scarred.
These are not young lovers, they are mid-lifers who are world wary, and wounded.
Shannon had been in a marriage that demanded more of her than she was able to give, no matter how she tried.
The damage from that stays with her.
Joe lost his only child to cancer, and feels the guilt and frustration of having done too little to save her.
His wife, who had prevented him from getting their daughter the medical treatment she needed due to her fundamentalist religious beliefs, committed suicide from the guilt of that.
Joe, of course, is scarred and wounded due to all of this.
Perhaps in a metaphorical way this is why he walks with a limp.
Shannon sees him on the beach and notices him walking, or jogging as best he can and something touches her about him.
Perhaps it is this very woundedness that makes her trust him somehow.
Shannon is as interesting and intriguing, meanwhile, as a beautiful, exotic butterfly.
Joe notices her, as do many who see her, and sits mesmerized to just watch.
She is a powerful female, as well.
No shrinking violet.
She is fabulously wealthy due to her discovery of oil, which her career as a geologist has allowed her to perceive.
She is perceptive, a risk taker, and brave enough to believe in her contrary views.
She knew there was oil when the others did not, and was willing to place her bets on it.
So she got rich where they did not.
It is this strength of her own convictions in her non-traditional views that make her willing to set the terms of this relationship in which they will only see each other for a month in January, a month in July and two short vacations in spring and summer.
It is Joe's own self-assuredness and compassion that allows him to accept her terms.
He respects her boundaries, and seems to know intuitively what those boundaries are without her having to spell each and every one of them out to him.
She appreciates this in him.
Not all relationships have to follow some orthodoxy.
Our culture sets these arbitrary rules for couples to follow, these invisible yet highly controlling rules.
When we choose as individuals or as couples to follow our own path and set our own guidelines, we might raise the eyebrows of our neighbors, or family, our friends.
But the special rules we choose to follow may work out best for us.
This book, The Topsail Accord, might serve as a template for some, or perhaps just free up the space in your mind to create your own template.
The leisurely pace of this book, and the restful tour of not only their relationship, but the places they chose to visit gave me the vicarious experience of their travels.
When I had finished I felt as if I had taken a vacation.
I was sorry to see the book end, and definitely plan to read other books by this talented author.
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