Beside the Sea is a small novel that conforms perfectly to Peirene Press' ambition to publish books that can be read in the same time it takes to watch a film. Despite its brevity, Olmi's book is a powerful examination of the demands of motherhood, and a melancholy look at what it means to love in a frightening world.

The story concerns a trip taken by a single mother to the seaside with her two young sons, Kevin and Stan. The unnamed mother, who narrates the book, is determined to give her children the best days of their lives, despite having little money. Although their life before the trip is obscure, social workers and financial troubles are mentioned in passing. It is clear that the mother is struggling to cope, and she hints darkly about the finality of this trip. In the driving rain of a French seaside town, she desperately tries to cling to moments of happiness with her children, but the pressure she puts on herself to make everything perfect leaves her fearful and vulnerable. Even as she scrapes together enough Euros for ice cream and Coke, she sees her failings in the handful of coins in the palm of her hand. The sneering and unhelpful locals represent the failings of the rest of the world. Between them and herself, she can see no future for her precious children. As the trip draws to a close, she is left to face her own personal apocalypse.

Beside the Sea is delicately crafted and beautifully pitched. Its themes and plot are undeniably melancholy, but because the book is short, its negativity never overwhelms the prose. The portrayal of this woman, so lost and fragile, is stunning. Her need to give nothing but love to her boys, and to protect them from a world against which she herself feels completely helpless, is complemented by a rumbling feeling of disaster, which is quiet at first, but which grows louder as the book progresses. When the disaster does arrive, it is both entirely predictable and grotesquely shocking.

Beside the Sea is a fantastic book. It is sad and wise, and a beautiful observation of motherhood and the pressures of bringing other lives into a world that doesn't want to help. It is not one to make you smile, but it is one to savour.