We, The Drowned
The internationally bestselling historical fiction family saga set in Denmark
-
-
4.6 • 7 Ratings
-
-
- £3.99
-
- £3.99
Publisher Description
In 1848, the young men of Marstal leave their Danish island town to fight in the First Schleswig War, and the sea begins to claim them.
Set in the Danish seafaring town of Marstal from 1848 to the end of the Second World War, We, The Drowned follows three generations shaped by salt water, violence, and absence. Laurids Madsen returns from battle restless and drawn back to the ocean. His son Albert grows up in the shadow of a father who belongs more to the sea than to his family, while Knud Erik Friis comes of age during the world wars, inheriting both pride and loss.
Ships sink, wars erupt, and fortunes collapse as men are lost to shipwreck, combat, and ambition. Women become the authority at home; children grow up without fathers and the identity of the town begins to shift.
Spanning the First Schleswig War and both World War I and World War II, We, The Drowned is nineteenth- and twentieth-century historical fiction full of adventure, longing, and the relentless pull of the sea.
‘Impressive... rich, powerful and rewarding’ Financial Times
‘An epic tale’ Independent
‘A book to sail into, to explore, to get lost in, but it is also a book that brings the reader, dazzled by wonders, home to the heart from which great stories come’ Joseph O'Connor
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An international hit, this bold seafaring epic spans 100 years in the lives of the men and women from a small town on an island off the Danish coast. Starting with the war between Germany and Denmark in 1848 and continuing through WWII, the men of Marstal sail, fight, trade, and die at sea while the women raise their children and wait for their husbands' and sons' uncertain return. The story loosely follows one family, the Madsens, beginning with the legendary Laurids Madsen, "best known for having single-handedly started a war," and then his son, Albert, and a boy named Knud Erik, whom Albert takes under his wing. From adventures on the storm-ravaged seas and in exotic lands, to battles in town over the shipping industry and family life, dozens of stories coalesce into an odyssey taut with action and drama and suffused with enough heart to satisfy readers who want more than the breakneck thrills of ships battling the elements. By the time readers turn the final page, they will have come to intimately know this town and its sailors who tear out across an unforgiving sea.
Customer Reviews
4
Wonderful storytelling. A story of people and progress, of boys that become men; how the sea shapes them and their Danish homes and families.