SHAPELESS SUMMERS

A British mariner changes careers and moves to Tahiti to work as a data scientist and manager of aid programs in this novel.

William Greenwood is divorced and in his early 40s when he decides that his maritime career may be ending. After a bout of dengue in Tahiti, he is impressed with the medical research apparatus, and he heads back to school to become a data scientist. Several years later, he bids farewell to England to work as a research assistant for a dengue project in Tahiti. Though he knows the sea, he has only a cursory familiarity with life on the Pacific islands. Now, reconnecting with Serge, a French doctor who helped him years before, William is immersed in the island’s warm and friendly environment and leisurely pace. When a scientist named Ingrid Olson visits from Norway, William notices that “an ineffable joy swept through me; my forty-seven-year-old self instantly felt young and free and renewed as though ready for a date.” William and Ingrid do become intimate, but she eventually returns to Europe. As William accepts other jobs in Tuvalu and Fiji, he tries to keep in touch with her, but the future is uncertain. His work involves grueling travel, but soon he will have to confront matters in his personal life back home unless he wants loneliness to become the norm. Thompson’s globe-trotting novel reads like a memoir, complete with photographs by the author, and has a fine focus on the real-world pains and pleasures that make the story so convincing. The knowledge about different islands, governments, cultures, and aid programs is top-notch, but it is the tale of being over 40 and afraid that work will overwhelm the last clinging threads of a personal life that shines through. This is a relatable but sophisticated book, and the protagonist’s search for love in middle age, plus a surprise at the end, makes it a moving one.

An enjoyable South Pacific tale, both smart and unpretentious, about leaving home and starting over.