The Story of Land and Sea (P.S. (Paperback)) - Softcover

Smith, Katy Simpson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062335952 ISBN 13: 9780062335951

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2015

Synopsis

Drawn to the ocean, ten-year-old Tabitha wanders the marshes of her small coastal village and listens to her father's stories about his pirate voyages and the mother she never knew. Since the loss of his wife, Helen, John has remained land-bound for their daughter, but when Tab contracts yellow fever, he turns to the sea once more. Desperate to save his daughter, he takes her aboard a sloop bound for Bermuda, hoping the salt air will heal her.Years before, Helen herself was raised by a widowed father. Asa, the devout owner of a small plantation, gives his daughter a young slave named Moll for her tenth birthday. Helen and Moll go on to develop a close but uneasy companionship. As the girls grow up, Helen gradually takes over the running of the plantation, but when she meets John, the pirate turned Continental soldier, she flouts convention and her father's wishes by falling in love. Moll, meanwhile, is forced into marriage with a stranger. Her only solace is her son, Davy, whom she will protect with a passion that defies the bounds of slavery.Set during the waning years of the American Revolution, this elegant, evocative, and haunting debut captures the singular love between parent and child, the devastation of love lost, and the desperate paths we travel in the name of renewal.

About this title

Review:

"Haunting...The Story of Land and Sea's finely wrought language blends startling details of the everyday with a dreamy, aphoristic quality. The effect is to root the novel in its historical moment but to reach toward the universal in its exploration of love and grief."--Washington Post

"THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA is a memorable debut, rich with small, sharp moments of observation and understanding...A deeply introspective novel...Smith weaves intricate patterns of motive and action that result in heartbreaking moral ambiguity."--Oxford American

"A luminous debut..."--O, the Oprah Magazine

"A marvel. With prose as meticulous as brushstrokes, I can think of no other debut filled with such wonder, grace, and beauty...a tremendous achievement, a masterful exploration of parenthood and faith...An heir apparent to Michael Ondaatje and Marilynne Robinson, Katy Simpson Smith has written a book for all of us."--Paul Yoon

"Smith hasn't merely evoked late-18th century American lives on shore and at sea-she's invented them afresh...She doesn't peddle the cozy illusion that, after all, these were people just like us; while reading THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA, we become just like them."--David Gates

"A pristine and powerful book...[Smith's] voice is a poet's and her vision is as expansive as the ocean, as the history in its depths. In her gorgeous and heart-rending first novel, she lays bare the hearts of parent and child, slave and master, and, most impressively, her readers."--Bret Anthony Johnston

"Smith's narrative flawlessly blends the beauty and idealism of American independence with the hypocrisy and devastation that lay beneath it...Smith's evocation of the humanity of both slave-owner and slave never falters, leading readers to a troubling and heartrending conclusion."--Huffington Post

"Smith lyrically but firmly draws us still back in time to reveal the lives that surround her character...Transporting, tragic, both tranquil and turbulent, Smith captures life in any time period--but especially this era of newfound freedoms--with grace and powerful prose."--Interview Magazine

"THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA is a striking debut novel that reads like poetry and will linger like mythology, as Simpson's language and metaphors weave threads of magic through each sentence."--BookPage

"Hypnotic...Smith employs a style of impressively measured, atmospheric understatement in her unabashedly stark descriptions, and we thrill to watch her characters row stoically into a darkening future."--Elle

About the Author:

Katy Simpson Smith is the author of a study of early American motherhood, We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835, and a novel, The Story of Land and Sea. She lives in New Orleans.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062335952
• ISBN 13: 9780062335951
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272