Seascraper

Longlisted for the Booker Prize, this ‘cinematically plotted...radiant’ (The New York Times) novel follows shanker Thomas Flett as his quiet life in a small English coastal town is forever changed over the course of one fateful day.

Twenty-year-old Thomas Flett lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, Northern England, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the drizzly shore to scrape for shrimp, and spends the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and sea-scum, pining for his neighbor, Joan Wyeth, and playing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but this remains a private dream.

Then a mysterious American arrives in town, and enlists Thomas’s help in finding a perfect location for his next movie. Though skeptical at first, soon Thomas starts to trust the stranger, Edgar, and, shaken from the drudgery of his days by the promise of Hollywood glamour, begins to see a different future for himself. But how much of what Edgar claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Haunting and timeless, from ‘one of the finest British novelists of his generation’ (The Times) Seascraper tells the story of a quiet existence upturned over the span of one day, and a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.


Genre: Literary Fiction

"I loved this hugely atmospheric story and its tender portrait of quiet Thomas Flett, a young man who secretly longs to make music, but whose dreams and prospects are constrained by his hard life, local community, upbringing and background. Then a passing American gives him - and us - a brief glimpse into what it means to aspire for something more. Haunting and beautiful, this is a very special novel indeed." - Sarah Easter Collins

"Benjamin Wood is a singular voice. Intense, original, unforgettable." - Kelly Mullen

"Seascraper is powerful, poignant and poetic. I can't recommend it enough." - Benjamin Myers

"It is a sensuous treat, this novel. So much care has been given to every detail - of shrimps and sea mists and sinkpits, of work and music. A language of the sea washes over every page." - Ross Raisin

"A quiet, unassuming book about honest work and modest dreams, about sons and their duty, and those brief, wonderful moments when we glimpse the possibility of living a different life. Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written." - Douglas Stuart