Seascraper
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025
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LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025
WINNER OF THE NERO BOOK AWARDS 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WINSTON GRAHAM HISTORICAL PRIZE 2026
'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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This beautiful novel set in the North of England in the early 1960s follows Thomas Flett, a 20-year-old shrimp fisherman who aspires to become a folk singer. He lives hand to mouth and in close quarters with his curmudgeonly mother, who had him when she was 15 and won't tell him who his father was. The spare and atmospheric narrative depicts Tom's melancholic daily life, which consists mostly of heading out to sea in rough conditions and harvesting shrimp using an antiquated technique taught to him by his late grandfather. In secret, he plays his guitar and pines for his friend's sister, Joan, whom he's afraid to ask out. Tom's world expands with the arrival of Edgar Acheson, an American film director who pays him £100 to serve as a location scout. The payment is a huge sum for Tom and his mother, and he agrees to help Edgar navigate the shore's dangerous tides. The narrative plays wonderfully with the line between reality and fantasy, as when Tom meets his father in a dreamlike state and finds the inspiration to write a great song. Wood's novel is a rare and curious pearl.
