The Boatmaker
John Benditt
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
A fierce and complicated man wakes from a fever dream compelled to build a boat and sail away from the isolated island where he was born. Encountering the wider world for the first time, the reluctant hero falls into a destructive love affair, is swept up into a fanatical religious movement, and finds himself a witness to racial hatred unlike anything he's ever known. The boatmaker is tempted, beaten, and betrayed: his journey marked by chilling episodes of violence and horror while he struggles to summon the strength to make his own way. The Boatmaker is a fable for our times, a passionate love story, and an odyssey of self-discovery.
Product Details
Price
$15.95
$14.83
Publisher
Tin House Books
Publish Date
March 03, 2015
Pages
400
Dimensions
5.2 X 1.2 X 7.9 inches | 1.0 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781935639985
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, John Benditt studied with Adrienne Rich and was awarded the John Russell Hayes Poetry Prize by Robert Creeley. Over time the emphasis of his writing shifted from poetry to prose-poetry and then to fiction. His journalistic career began at the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" and "Philadelphia Evening Bulletin." As an editor at "Scientific American," he was responsible for conceiving and editing the magazine's 1988 single-topic issue on AIDS. He lives in New York City.
Reviews
"John Benditt's debut novel is wholly original. Beautifully written in language as straightforward as that of a parable, "The Boatmaker" is a complex modern fable about innocence, discovery, loss, and redemption. Its protagonist, an Everyman who is discontent yet uncorrupted, takes us on a journey through cynicism, despair, violence, wonder, and prejudice only to lead us back to a place where we know who we are and why we have reason to dream."
--Rachel Urquhart, author of "The Visionist"
""The Boatmaker" is a wonderful novel--wonderful as in spectacularly good and wonderful as in full of wonders. There are echoes of our own time and of older times; it is set in a very intelligently imagined country, a mirror of our Western world and its evils and virtues rather than a fantasy land."
--John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of "Spartina"
"John Benditt's "The Boatmaker" is made of primal stuff: stone and sea, blood and snow, dreams of wolves and men like bears. This is a novel that will anchor you firmly to the earth, close enough to the pulse of the world that you might hear its drumbeat echo on every page."
--Matt Bell, author of "In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods"
"At once a tour de force and a strangely mesmerizing parable, this is a book that you will not put down even when you have finished reading it."--Pam Cady, University of Washington Book Store
"well crafted debut....spellbinding"
--"Publishers Weekly"
"With a political slant and an understanding of religion's effect on communities, "The Boatmaker"will appeal to fans of literary novels of self-discovery."
--"Foreword"
""The Boatmaker" is already one of our favorite books of the year a true odyssey about one man's complicated journey away from his native island."
--"Time Out New York"
"Benditt's timely and haunting first novel has the profound impact of a parable."
--"BBC"
"John Benditt's debut novel is wholly original. Beautifully written in language as straightforward as that of a parable, "The Boatmaker" is a complex modern fable about innocence, discovery, loss, and redemption. Its protagonist, an Everyman who is discontent yet uncorrupted, takes us on a journey through cynicism, despair, violence, wonder, and prejudice only to lead us back to a place where we know who we are and why we have reason to dream."
--Rachel Urquhart, author of "The Visionist"
""The Boatmaker" is a wonderful novel--wonderful as in spectacularly good and wonderful as in full of wonders. There are echoes of our own time and of older times; it is set in a very intelligently imagined country, a mirror of our Western world and its evils and virtues rather than a fantasy land."
--John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of "Spartina"
"John Benditt's "The Boatmaker" is made of primal stuff: stone and sea, blood and snow, dreams of wolves and men like bears. This is a novel that will anchor you firmly to the earth, close enough to the pulse of the world that you might hear its drumbeat echo on every page."
--Matt Bell, author of "In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods"
"At once a tour de force and a strangely mesmerizing parable, this is a book that you will not put down even when you have finished reading it."
--Pam Cady, University of Washington Book Store
"[P]owerful first novel...no matter how unexpected the course of events, each plot twist seems somehow preordained. His sentences accumulate with a calm and unmistakable authority, as if all this has happened before and is just now coming to light."
"The New York Times Book Review"
"well crafted debut....spellbinding"
"Publishers Weekly"
"With a political slant and an understanding of religion s effect on communities, "The Boatmaker" will appeal to fans of literary novels of self-discovery."
"Foreword"
""The Boatmaker" is already one of our favorite books of the year a true odyssey about one man s complicated journey away from his native island."
"Time Out New York"
"Benditt s timely and haunting first novel has the profound impact of a parable."
"BBC"
"John Benditt's debut novel is wholly original. Beautifully written in language as straightforward as that of a parable, "The Boatmaker" is a complex modern fable about innocence, discovery, loss, and redemption. Its protagonist, an Everyman who is discontent yet uncorrupted, takes us on a journey through cynicism, despair, violence, wonder, and prejudice only to lead us back to a place where we know who we are and why we have reason to dream."
Rachel Urquhart, author of "The Visionist"
""The Boatmaker" is a wonderful novelwonderful as in spectacularly good and wonderful as in full of wonders. There are echoes of our own time and of older times; it is set in a very intelligently imagined country, a mirror of our Western world and its evils and virtues rather than a fantasy land."
John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of "Spartina"
"John Benditt's "The Boatmaker" is made of primal stuff: stone and sea, blood and snow, dreams of wolves and men like bears. This is a novel that will anchor you firmly to the earth, close enough to the pulse of the world that you might hear its drumbeat echo on every page."
Matt Bell, author of "In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods"
"At once a tour de force and a strangely mesmerizing parable, this is a book that you will not put down even when you have finished reading it."
Pam Cady, University of Washington Book Store
"
--Rachel Urquhart, author of "The Visionist"
""The Boatmaker" is a wonderful novel--wonderful as in spectacularly good and wonderful as in full of wonders. There are echoes of our own time and of older times; it is set in a very intelligently imagined country, a mirror of our Western world and its evils and virtues rather than a fantasy land."
--John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of "Spartina"
"John Benditt's "The Boatmaker" is made of primal stuff: stone and sea, blood and snow, dreams of wolves and men like bears. This is a novel that will anchor you firmly to the earth, close enough to the pulse of the world that you might hear its drumbeat echo on every page."
--Matt Bell, author of "In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods"
"At once a tour de force and a strangely mesmerizing parable, this is a book that you will not put down even when you have finished reading it."--Pam Cady, University of Washington Book Store
"well crafted debut....spellbinding"
--"Publishers Weekly"
"With a political slant and an understanding of religion's effect on communities, "The Boatmaker"will appeal to fans of literary novels of self-discovery."
--"Foreword"
""The Boatmaker" is already one of our favorite books of the year a true odyssey about one man's complicated journey away from his native island."
--"Time Out New York"
"Benditt's timely and haunting first novel has the profound impact of a parable."
--"BBC"
"John Benditt's debut novel is wholly original. Beautifully written in language as straightforward as that of a parable, "The Boatmaker" is a complex modern fable about innocence, discovery, loss, and redemption. Its protagonist, an Everyman who is discontent yet uncorrupted, takes us on a journey through cynicism, despair, violence, wonder, and prejudice only to lead us back to a place where we know who we are and why we have reason to dream."
--Rachel Urquhart, author of "The Visionist"
""The Boatmaker" is a wonderful novel--wonderful as in spectacularly good and wonderful as in full of wonders. There are echoes of our own time and of older times; it is set in a very intelligently imagined country, a mirror of our Western world and its evils and virtues rather than a fantasy land."
--John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of "Spartina"
"John Benditt's "The Boatmaker" is made of primal stuff: stone and sea, blood and snow, dreams of wolves and men like bears. This is a novel that will anchor you firmly to the earth, close enough to the pulse of the world that you might hear its drumbeat echo on every page."
--Matt Bell, author of "In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods"
"At once a tour de force and a strangely mesmerizing parable, this is a book that you will not put down even when you have finished reading it."
--Pam Cady, University of Washington Book Store
"[P]owerful first novel...no matter how unexpected the course of events, each plot twist seems somehow preordained. His sentences accumulate with a calm and unmistakable authority, as if all this has happened before and is just now coming to light."
"The New York Times Book Review"
"well crafted debut....spellbinding"
"Publishers Weekly"
"With a political slant and an understanding of religion s effect on communities, "The Boatmaker" will appeal to fans of literary novels of self-discovery."
"Foreword"
""The Boatmaker" is already one of our favorite books of the year a true odyssey about one man s complicated journey away from his native island."
"Time Out New York"
"Benditt s timely and haunting first novel has the profound impact of a parable."
"BBC"
"John Benditt's debut novel is wholly original. Beautifully written in language as straightforward as that of a parable, "The Boatmaker" is a complex modern fable about innocence, discovery, loss, and redemption. Its protagonist, an Everyman who is discontent yet uncorrupted, takes us on a journey through cynicism, despair, violence, wonder, and prejudice only to lead us back to a place where we know who we are and why we have reason to dream."
Rachel Urquhart, author of "The Visionist"
""The Boatmaker" is a wonderful novelwonderful as in spectacularly good and wonderful as in full of wonders. There are echoes of our own time and of older times; it is set in a very intelligently imagined country, a mirror of our Western world and its evils and virtues rather than a fantasy land."
John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of "Spartina"
"John Benditt's "The Boatmaker" is made of primal stuff: stone and sea, blood and snow, dreams of wolves and men like bears. This is a novel that will anchor you firmly to the earth, close enough to the pulse of the world that you might hear its drumbeat echo on every page."
Matt Bell, author of "In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods"
"At once a tour de force and a strangely mesmerizing parable, this is a book that you will not put down even when you have finished reading it."
Pam Cady, University of Washington Book Store
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