The Seas

Description

The narrator of "The Seas" lives in a tiny, remote, alcoholic, cruel seaside town. An occasional chambermaid, granddaughter to a typesetter, and daughter to a dead man, awkward and brave, wayward and willful, she is in love (unrequited) with an Iraq War veteran thirteen years her senior. She is convinced that she is a mermaid. What she does to ease the pain of growing up lands her in prison. What she does to get out is the stuff of legend. In the words of writer Michelle Tea, "The Seas" is 'creepy and poetic, subversive and strangely funny, [and] a phenomenal piece of literature'. Praise for "The Invention of Everything Else": 'A beguiling mix of love, death, pigeons and time travel...a gem of a story about the power of imagination' - Marie Claire. 'Samantha Hunt is an exciting find - a fresh original voice...a fantastical love story...literary gold...It should appeal to fans of "The Time Traveller's Wife" and Donna Tartt' - "Sunday Express". 'Intelligent, compassionate...beautifully conjured' - "Daily Telegraph".

Promotion info

Award-winning debut novel from an Orange Prize Shortlisted writer.

Author description

Samantha Hunt was born in 1971 in Pound Ridge, New York. The Seas is her debut novel - it won the National Book Foundation's award for writers under 35 and was voted one of the Top 27 Books of 2004 by the Voice Literary Supplement. She is also the author of The Invention of Everything Else which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2009. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Esquire, A Public Space, Cabinet, Tin House, Seed Magazine, New York Magazine, Blind Spot, Harper's Bazaar, and The Believer. Her work has been translated into seven languages. Samantha Hunt teaches writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.