Close Quarters

Introduced by Helen Castor, lose yourself in an epic naval journey in the second novel in the Booker Prize-winning historical fiction Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies.

This tropical nowhere was the whole world ¿ the whole imaginable world.

A decrepit warship is becalmed halfway to Australia, stilled in an ocean wilderness of heat and sea mists. In this surreal, f¿-like atmosphere, a ball is held with a passing ship: the passengers dance and flirt, while beneath them seaweed like green hair spreads omniously over the hull. Half-mad with fear, drink, love and opium, both vessel and passengers feel themselves going to pieces: and the very planks seem to twist themselves alive as the ship comes apart at the seams . . .

''Fantastic ... Gems tumble off the pages ... A strong sense of drama ... Much of the pleasure of reading his work is his original imagery.'' Annie Proulx

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