Prince of Tides

In the present day, Tom lives in Sullivan Island, South Carolina, in a beach house with his wife, Sallie, and their three young daughters, Jennifer, Chandler, and Lucy. Tom has recently been laid off as a high school football coach, while Sallie is a doctor. On a beautiful summer day, Tom gets an abrupt call from his mother, Lila, from whom he is estranged. Lila tells a reluctant Tom she is coming over to visit him and share some terrible news. It is obvious Tom is uncomfortable around Lila.

Lila arrives and tells Tom that Savannah, now living in New York, has attempted suicide again and is catatonic in a psychiatric institute. Lila wants Tom to visit Savannah in New York since she cannot be with her daughter at the time. Tom berates his mother for her abandonment of Savannah. However, Tom himself has not seen his sister in the last few years. Tom hints that Savannah—who has mental health issues—has suffered because of their family secrets, but Lila dismisses the suggestion. Tom and Lila exchange cruel words, but Tom agrees to visit his twin.

After Lila leaves and the children are in bed, Tom and Sallie go for a walk on the beach. Sallie is perturbed by Tom’s apathy and coldness. She suggests that something that happened to Tom’s elder brother Luke has unsettled Tom to the extent he is emotionally numb. Sallie also confesses to Tom she has been having an affair with a fellow doctor and wants to take a break from the marriage. It is clear Tom, too, has had affairs in the past. Though Tom wants to save their marriage, he can do little more than appear gruff and sarcastic. Sallie walks away to the house, while Tom plunges into self-pity about his lost job and his dissatisfied life, even though he knows he has a lot to fight for, including the three much-loved daughters he calls “goddesses” (12).

The action now flashes back to the 1970s. Tom is a football coach and English literature teacher. Tom and Luke visit New York City to attend a poetry reading by Savannah, now a significant poet and a die-hard New Yorker. Present-day Tom recalls how Savannah fell in love with New York ever since she opened the pages of the New Yorker magazine as a girl. She now admires the city’s crowds and the anonymity they offer her; however, to Tom and Luke, New York is ugly and ridden with crime, its people mean-minded. The brothers often clash with their sister over the merits of the South over New York. Luke wants Savannah to return to the South, a suggestion Savannah considers ludicrous. One reason the brothers dislike New York is that their notions of chivalry are considered outdated by the feminists they encounter at Savannah’s poetry readings.

At the reading, Tom is moved by the ease with which Savannah captures her audience, the “supernatural” (38) power of her writing, and the purity of her voice. Savannah’s poems describe the natural beauty of her childhood, as well as her struggles with mental health. Tom and Luke are fiercely proud of their sister. The narrative suggests that though Luke loves his younger siblings deeply, he is a little envious of the twins' uncanny bond.

Later that night, Tom and Luke, boarding at Savannah’s New York apartment, are woken up by Savannah’s feverish muttering. Tom goes to Savannah’s room, where Savannah tells him she is having a terrifying vision of mutilated, bleeding angels suspended from the walls. She also sees a tiger and fierce dogs, all moaning and defecating. Though Tom tries to convince Savannah the visions are not real, she tells him the figures are jeering at her, telling her that no one can rescue her. The figures have been tormenting Savannah for many years. In the past, she has slashed her wrists just to be rid of them.

Afterward, Tom and Luke discuss Savannah’s distressing condition. While Luke thinks Savannah is “crazy as owl shit” (49), Tom tells him that their childhood trauma has contributed to Savannah’s suffering. Tom alludes to a specific incident that happened to them as children, but Luke says that they should believe Lila’s version of events, which is that no such incident ever occurred.

In the present day, 1981, Tom is in New York City to meet Dr. Susan Lowenstein, Savannah’s psychiatrist (whom this guide will refer to as Susan from this point, though Tom calls Lowenstein throughout). As he waits in her office waiting room, Tom doubts that Susan will be able to help Savannah since her previous doctors have all failed to treat her. Tom finds a copy of Savannah’s poetry collection, The Prince of Tides, in Susan's office. The dedication on the back of the book says: “Man wonders but God decides,/ When to kill the Prince of Tides” (56).

Walking in on Tom, Susan wants to know who the Prince of Tides is, but Tom evades her question. Susan tries to get Tom to tell her more about their childhood, which she feels holds the key to Savannah’s recovery. Tom is initially hostile to the doctor because he mistrusts psychiatrists and New Yorkers. He also thinks the doctor judges him as a racist since he is a southerner.

When Tom and Susan visit Savannah in the hospital, Savannah, crouched on the floor of her room, refuses to acknowledge Tom. Afterward, a shaken Tom and Susan go for dinner. Susan makes Tom listen to a recording of Savannah’s feverish muttering when she met her right after the suicide attempt. Tom recognizes the disconnected sentences as meaningful, a record of Savannah’s life. The word “Callanwolde” sticks out in Savannah’s recording. Tom promises to interpret the words for Susan and tell her more about his sister’s past.

Later, Tom crashes at Savannah’s apartment, where he meets her neighbor and old friend Eddie Detreville, housesitting for Savannah. Eddie gives Tom painkillers for his migraine and leaves. Tom reads an old letter from Savannah he keeps in his wallet, written when Tom first started coaching. Tom misses Savannah’s congratulatory, warm words from the letter and is panic-struck at the prospect of losing his sister forever. Overwhelmed, Tom promises himself that he will change things in his and Savannah’s lives.

Tom takes Susan—and the reader—to 1944, the World-War-II year when he and Savannah were born. Two good Samaritans played a pivotal role in the lives of the Wingos at this point. One is Sarah Jenkins, an 85-year-old midwife, who helps Lila in the difficult twin birth. Henry, an ally pilot in Europe, is presumed dead. Luke is a baby. As a massive hurricane hits the island, Lila’s father-in-law Amos and Sarah help her deliver first Savannah and then Tom. Since the house begins to flood, Amos has no option but to shift Lila and the three children out to the barn through the hayloft. The gale knocks Sarah against the wall of an outhouse, injuring her badly, but Amos gets her into the loft as well. Bleeding heavily, Lila manages to make it through the night, but Sarah dies.

The second good Samaritan of Tom’s story is Father Ginter Kraus, an elderly German Catholic priest whose church Henry takes refuge after his plane is shot down. It is a crime to harbor allied soldiers, but the priest doesn’t turn in Henry to the Nazis since he feels guilt over betraying a Jewish family to the authorities. They were later executed in the Dachau Concentration camp. Father Kraus and Henry become friends. Moved by Kraus’s religion, Henry decides to convert to Catholicism. After being baptized by Kraus, Henry sets out for Switzerland to seek amnesty. Father Kraus gives him a hoe to carry, so Henry may appear to be a farmer on his trek. The ruse largely works, except in one instance when a German woman recognizes him as a possible ally soldier. Tom confesses to Susan that Henry kills the woman to save himself. Henry manages to make it to Switzerland and eventually returns home. A year later, he returns to Germany to thank Father Kraus and learns the Nazis executed the priest after they found Henry’s discarded uniform in the church. Henry takes away the church’s icon, a statue of the Infant of Prague, as a memento of Father Kraus.