1
/
of
1
Benjamin Wood
Seascraper
Seascraper
Regular price
$35.00 AUD
Regular price
Sale price
$35.00 AUD
Taxes included.
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
SEASCRAPER is a mesmerising portrait of a young man confined by his class and the ghosts of his family's past, dreaming of a bigger life.
*LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025*
PETA'S REVIEW
Beyond the shifting cold twilight,
Further than laughter goes, or tears, further than dreaming,
There'll be no port, no dawn-lit islands!
Those lines from Rupert Brooke’s poem, ‘Day That I Have Loved’, echo powerfully throughout Benjamin Wood’s Booker Prize longlisted novella, Seascraper. Set in the fictional coastal town of Longferry, the book tells the story of young shanker Thomas Flett, who lives with his mother, taking on the family’s shrimping business after his grandfather’s death. Each morning Thomas rises at dawn, tacks up his faithful horse, and heads to the beach where he spends hours scraping the shingled sands for shrimp. His only pleasures are spending afternoons playing his guitar, and catching a glimpse of Joan Wyeth, with whom he has been enamoured for years but has never had the courage to ask out. The Guardian review astutely positions Thomas in the Hardyesque tradition of young men such as Jude Frawley and Gabriel Oak, who tend the land or work with their hands, have moral integrity, are loyal, and patiently endure life’s vicissitudes. And while Thomas accepts his simple, humble life, he has not given up on his dream that one day he will play his guitar and Joan will notice him.
However, one day he returns home to find a stranger speaking with his mother. An American, Edgar Acheson, tells them he is a film director and who, as part of his new project, wants to film Thomas shanking on the beach. Edgar says:
I feel I’ve got the strongest sense of what this beach could give the picture.
There’s a mood out here – it’s absolutely right. I mean, it’s like I’ve been
out here before. It’s so strange, when you read a book and you can picture
all the places in it so completely, even though they’re built from someone
else’s life and you’re just like a tourist in the writer’s scenery, you know …
I felt exactly the same. Wood’s vivid descriptions of Longferry’s sea mists, the soft glow of the lamps on the pier, Thomas harnessing his horse or tuning his guitar, his mother cooking a fry-up, create a sensorially rich world. You hear the “strange, spasmodic crunch each time the wheels pass over razor shells and gnarls of driftwood … undulating sand that gives beneath the wheels as readily as butter.” But for all the beauty of this world, Edgar’s presence upends Thomas’s quiet existence, promising glamour and opportunities in life beyond Longferry’s boundaries. While Wood doesn’t present Edgar as a saviour figure, offering easy answers to the complexities of life, he does make Thomas ask pertinent questions, and encourages him to imagine a life beyond Longferry, the sea and his everyday routine.
The novella is divided into three sections: ‘First Low Water’, ‘Second Low Water’, and again ‘First Low Water’. Each section differs in tone and contains some unexpected twists. The first section establishes a sense of the new in Thomas’s world. The second section, when Thomas is lost in the fog, desperate to the avoid the sinkholes in trying to find Edgar, is both a gripping and ethereal read, full of tension and uncertainty about what is real. A strange woman arrives and rescues Thomas. Or does she? The third section takes another surprising turn with the arrival of Edgar’s mother, Mildred; her revelations about disturbing details from Edgar’s past leave Thomas having to choose between following Edgar’s path in life or forging his own.
Seascraper is a beautifully written novella. The language is atmospheric and poetic, evoking the harsh realities of life in a remote coastal town, and both the beauty and confronting power of nature. The novel adroitly transforms the quotidian into the poetic and shows the healing power of art. Thomas is a beautifully realised character. He, like his Hardy predecessors, Jude and Gabriel, is defined by his honesty, stoicism, integrity, connection to nature, and quiet strength.
The book’s Acknowledgements provide a link to Benjamin Wood’s webpage, where you can hear one of Thomas Flett’s poignant songs. It’s certainly worth listening to, to add to the pleasure of reading the book.
Seascraper is now available in an elegant hardback in the Lane Bookshop.
PUBLISHER REVIEW
'Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written' DOUGLAS STUART
Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa's trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.
When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?
Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.
Share
