What Happens In Low Tide In Twilight Chapter 2?

After reading the prologue of ‘Low Tide in Twilight’ I was really excited to get into the second chapter of this beautiful novel. It begins with the protagonist from Chapter 1 walking out across the sand of the beach that has been revealed by the receding tide. He is still fresh from the loss of his love in the prologue and the chapter unfolds in a lovely slow-to-pace sort of way as he walks and then discovers strange glistening objects on the floor of the vanished reef. There’s a child’s shoe, a broken compass and an old glass bottle with a folded piece of paper inside it.

The next section picks up with a character from the hero’s past. It is clear this person knows more than they are letting on. Throughout their short conversation half accusations are thrown at the other person while at the same time apologies are made. There is a lighthouse keeper and a promise that wasn’t kept. We get more of the sea becoming a character in the story and memories surface like seaweed in the bottom of the sea. It gives the impression of something that has long gone coming back on a low tide. The memory of what the hero did all those years ago is not pleasant and there is the feeling that he made a rash decision.

The end of Chapter 2 is an intimate moment where the main character reads the contents of the folded paper. The note is so short, childlike almost, and totally flips the reader’s perception of the events of the chapter. The note is a foreword to the rest of the book, and has a profound effect on the protagonist. It’s an unsettling yet strangely comforting chapter – like standing watch for hours on end, finally sitting down, exhausted, as the gulls fly in and settle about you.

The second chapter of ‘Low Tide in Twilight’ develops from atmosphere to action. Initially, the low tide reveals a stony beach sprinkled with flotsam, a long-exposed strip of pebbles intermingled with seaweed. The protagonist walks along this strange path and the flotsam of bygone times reveals fragments of long-forgotten happenings. There was the boat that had vanished long ago, the friendship that was irreparably destroyed by a dark secret. When the protagonist asks a local for an explanation, he responds with allusions to complicated loyalties of the town, secrets kept in order to protect the staggering mass of human imperfection, not to cover up deviance.

As for plot, in this chapter a locket is found, names are called out, and a long-abandoned promise to the protagonist is alluded to. While we are given glimpses of memory, none of them are long enough to fill in the gaps and give away what is really going on. This chapter further sets up the story and shows how the protagonist is becoming more involved in his past. Settings in this chapter can almost be considered characters. The low tide reveals what the sea has taken – be it physical objects or memories – and the twilight is a marker between hope and despair.

I started reading Chapter 2 of ‘Low Tide in Twilight’ last night with a cup of tea and got caught up in reading it so much that I ended up staying up late. The chapter certainly ups the ante in terms of world building very quickly. The town is shown in all its oddity, from salt-stained porches to boarded up windows adorned with crab traps and the old pier creaking and groaning like an old dog. The vast majority of the chapter is spent with our protagonist trying to find answers while exploring the various details of the town and how they relate to his search. A particularly nice scene saw the characters following a trail of footprints down to the low tide line where various items of interest had washed up and, when pieced together, revealed a previously lost weekend from years ago.

Here the character beats are sharper than in the first chapter. We see a young, brash and often impatient sibling, who creates conflict with the protagonist. Much of that conflict is rooted in the protagonist’s avoidance of responsibility. The dialogue is sharp and slightly raw, but that is partly due to the characters having salt in their lungs. They are not poets. The end of the chapter is quietly promising. Will the protagonist be able to face the past that the sea continues to bring to their shores? Or will he sink under its weight? I was drawn into this mix of mystery and atmosphere, of relationships that are all a bit fractured.