{"product_id":"sea-wife-isbn-9780525656494","title":"Sea Wife","description":"\u003cb\u003eA\u003ci\u003e New York Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eSea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e is a gripping tale of survival at sea—but that’s just the beginning. Amity Gaige also manages, before she’s done, to probe the underpinnings of romantic love, marriage, literary ambition, political inclinations in the Trump age, parenthood, and finally, the nature of survival itself in our broken world. Gaige is thrillingly talented, and her novel enchants.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jennifer Egan\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Sea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e brilliantly breathes life not only into the perils of living at sea, but also into the fraught and hidden dangers of domesticity, motherhood, and marriage. What a smart, swift, and thrilling novel.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Lauren Groff\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the highly acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eSchroder\u003c\/i\u003e, a smart, sophisticated literary page-turner about a young family who escape suburbia for a yearlong sailing trip that upends all of their lives.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJuliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her stalled-out dissertation on confessional poetry when her husband, Michael, informs her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. With their two kids—Sybil, age seven, and George, age two—Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their forty-four foot sailboat awaits them. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe initial result is transformative; the marriage is given a gust of energy, Juliet emerges from her depression, and the children quickly embrace the joys of being feral children at sea. Despite the stresses of being novice sailors, the family learns to crew the boat together on the ever-changing sea. The vast horizons and isolated islands offer Juliet and Michael reprieve – until they are tested by the unforeseen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e is told in gripping dual perspectives: Juliet’s first person narration, after the journey, as she struggles to come to terms with the life-changing events that unfolded at sea, and Michael’s captain’s log, which provides a riveting, slow-motion account of these same inexorable events, a dialogue that reveals the fault lines created by personal history and political divisions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e is a transporting novel about marriage, family and love in a time of unprecedented turmoil. It is unforgettable in its power and astonishingly perceptive in its portrayal of optimism, disillusionment, and survival.\"Stunning... Amity [tows] you to tragedy with the graceful crawl of a poet and the motorboat intensity of a suspense author.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Profound and universal... “Sea Wife” achieves a lovely balance between the real and the metaphoric\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Gaige's razor-sharp novel is wise to marital and broader politics. But it's also such gripping escapism that it feels like a lifeboat.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—People\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Cuts to the heart of mundane marital strife and the legacy of trauma.\"\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Elle\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Gaige is a superb writer.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Boston Globe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Gripping... A powerful take on a marriage on the rocks.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] splendid, wrenching novel...Every element of this impressive novel clicks into a dazzling, heartbreaking whole.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e [starred review]\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eSea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e is a gripping tale of survival at sea—but that’s just the beginning.  Amity Gaige also manages, before she’s done, to probe the underpinnings of romantic love, marriage, literary ambition, political inclinations in the Trump age, parenthood, and finally, the nature of survival itself in our broken world.  Gaige is thrillingly talented, and her novel enchants.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jennifer Egan\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Taut as a thriller, emotionally precise yet threaded with lyricism, \u003ci\u003eSea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e is at once the compelling story of a family's glorious, misbegotten seafaring adventure and an allegory for life itself. This is an unforgettable novel.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Claire Messud\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e is an immersive pleasure. Amity Gaige captivates us, tricks us, and transports us.  She understands the inner and the outer world—from quiet misery to murderous seas—and there is no world she cannot explore and illuminate.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Amy Bloom\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Sea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e brilliantly breathes life not only into the perils of living at sea, but also into the fraught and hidden dangers of domesticity, motherhood, and marriage. What a smart, swift, and thrilling novel.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Lauren Groff\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Few writers have portrayed marriage and parenthood with more fierce intelligence than Amity Gaige, but in Sea Wife, she has outdone herself.  This is an unforgettable portrait of a family that ventures out to sea, only to be riven by the weight of the past, and the politics of the present. Piercingly written and compelling from beginning to end, Sea Wife is a major accomplishment.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Adam Haslett\u003c\/b\u003eAMITY GAIGE is the author of four novels, \u003ci\u003eO My Darling\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Folded World\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSchroder, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Sea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e.  \u003ci\u003eSea Wife\u003c\/i\u003e was a 2020 New York Times Notable Book. Her previous novel, \u003ci\u003eSchroder\u003c\/i\u003e, was shortlisted for the UK’s Rathbones Folio Prize in 2014, and was translated into 18 languages. Amity is the winner of a Fulbright Fellowship, fellowships at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction. Her short stories, essays, and book reviews have appeared in publications such as\u003ci\u003e The New York Times, The Guardian, Die Welt, Harper’s Bazaar, The Yale Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOne Story\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere. She lives in West Hartford, CT, with her family, and teaches at Yale.\u003cp\u003eChapter 1\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhere does a mistake begin? Lately I’ve found this simple question difficult. Impossible, actually. A mistake has roots in both time and space—a person’s reasoning and her whereabouts. Somewhere in the intersection of those two dimensions is the precisely bounded mistake—in nautical terms, its coordinates.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDid my mistake begin with the boat? Or my marriage itself? I don’t think so. I now suspect that my mistake took root in an innocent experience I forgot to decipher, the mystery of which has quietly ruled me. For example, I remember standing beside a blindingly blue Howard Johnson’s motel pool at twelve years old, watching a couple undress one another through a half-drawn curtain, while my estranged father disputed the bill in the lobby. Should I have looked away? Did the miscalculation occur even earlier, as I sat on a rope rug in clean kindergarten sunlight, and I leaned toward the boy beside me and accepted his insistent whisper? I still feel his dew in my ear.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAnd now I am sitting in a closet.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMichael’s closet.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI should explain.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI moved in a couple of days ago. I came in here looking for something of his, and discovered that the carpet is very plush. The slatted bifold doors filter the sunlight beautifully. I feel calm in here.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHiding in closets is the habit of children, I know. I used to hide in my mother’s closet when I was a kid. Her closet contained some dressy silks and wools she never wore. I loved holding these fabrics against my body, or stepping into her high heels, as if onto a dais, rehearsing my future. I never felt ashamed.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSurely there is some connection between seeking refuge in my mother’s closet long ago and hiding in Michael’s now, but that insight does not help me.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSometimes life just writes you tiny, awful poems.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI am uncertain whether or not I can survive this day.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI mean, if I want to.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eTo go out, to go \u003ci\u003eoutside\u003c\/i\u003e, requires preparation and composure. If I were to go out, to start walking around and seeing people again and going to the grocery store and getting on with it, invariably what someone would ask me is, Do you wish you’d never gone? They will expect me to say, Yes, our journey was a mistake.\u003cbr\u003eMaybe that’s what they hope I will say.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut saying yes to the boat was my clearest act of loyalty toward my husband.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI can’t afford to regret it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIf I did, I would only be left with my many disloyalties.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJanuary 17. 10:15 a.m. LOG OF YACHT ‘JULIET.’ From Porvenir. Toward Cayos Limones. 09° 33.5ʹN 078° 56.98ʹW. NW wind 10 knots. Seas 2–4 feet. NOTES AND REMARKS: We are 102 nautical miles ENE of Panama City, catching prevailing winds into the sovereign territory of San Blas. The shape of the coast is still visible behind us, but ahead is just water. Nothing but water. That’s when I realize there’s only one ocean. One big mother ocean. Yes, there are bays \u0026amp; seas \u0026amp; straits. But those are just words. Artificial divisions. Once you’re out here, you see there’s just one unbroken country of water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eYou would never feel this way on land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e(Not in our country.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat a feeling. Generations of sailors have failed to describe it, so what are my chances? Me, Michael Partlow. Michael Partlow, who can’t tell you the title of a single poem. Just ask my wife, her head is full of them.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhen I first met him, I thought, \u003ci\u003eI’d never marry a guy like that\u003c\/i\u003e. Too persnickety. Too conventional. No sense of humor! But I was wrong. Marriage and kids and the grind made Michael morbidly funny. He got funnier and funnier, while I, who had been funny, got less funny.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThere was this muscle shirt to which he was superstitiously attached when we were living aboard the boat. The memory of this shirt makes me laugh out loud. While sailing in hot climates, you start wearing as little as possible. And cruising kids, they dress like mental patients—grass skirts and flamenco dresses with muck boots and welding visors and shell necklaces—mementos of places they’ve been. I have no idea where Michael got the muscle shirt. Panama City? It was white, with huge armholes. Standing ashore, beaming, with his boyish face and unwashed hair, he looked like a prep-school kid who’d gotten lost on a hike about twenty years ago.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe crew of our vessel is fit and in good spirits. Bosun Sybil Partlow (age 7) is sitting in First Mate Juliet Partlow’s lap in the cockpit. Deckhand George “Doodle” Partlow (age 21⁄2) is doing his best to stand upright in the small swell. He’s pantless, waiting for First Mate to let him whiz off of the side of the boat. His slightly delayed vocabulary is strictly maritime. Boat go, fish go. We were just visited by a very large sea turtle! Surfacing portside with a head like a periscope. Sybil says it’s a spy. Whenever Sybil says anything cute, she tells me to write it down. That turtle’s a spy, write that down in your book, Daddy.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePardon me? I say. Are you speaking to me? What do you call me underway, Bosun?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eShe laughs. Fine, write that down in your book, Captain.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe muscle shirt was so funny because he’s normally such a neatnik, a dandy, and a rearranger. He needs almost no sleep. His mother said he’d always been that way. Here at the house, he used to work late into the night, sending emails and finishing reports, but mostly, man-tinkering. Learning about electrical wiring by gutting another appliance or making little toys for the kids. Sometimes he’d even go across the brook, where he’d built a fire pit, and we’d sleep to the rustic scent of wood smoke.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn the morning, he’d leave for work as shiny as an apple. He wouldn’t let the children eat in his commuting car. Goldfish, Triscuits—verboten. But the family car, \u003ci\u003emy\u003c\/i\u003e car? Lawless. A layer of organic material composted under the seats. Mysterious objects thumped against the wheel wells whenever I made a sharp turn.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI understand it now, sitting here. I understand how nice it must have been for him to have a little fiefdom—a closet, where shoes are paired, and the world is shut out, and you get to make all your own choices.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMy closet, just there on the other side of our bedroom, is haphazard. I gave up trying to neaten it when Sybil was a toddler. After months of hanging them up, I just left all the blouses on the floor, where they’d fallen after she’d pulled them off the hangers. She’d shuffle out of the closet in my shoes, unsteady as a drunk, and leave them where I’d never find them.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut I am a mother. Gradually, I just gave them all away, all my spaces, one by one, down to the very last closet.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJanuary 17. 6 p.m. LOG OF YACHT ‘JULIET.’ Cayos Limones. 09° 32.7ʹN 078° 54.0ʹW. NOTES AND REMARKS: Made it here to Cayos Limones no problem \u0026amp; are anchored off small island with a good holding. Sybil is jumping off the transom while her mom is wrestling Doodle out of his swimmy shirt.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSmile! \u003c\/i\u003ethey used to say to sad-sack little girls like me. Then feminism came along and said fuck smiling—you’d never force a boy to smile. But as it turns out—recent studies show—that the physical act of smiling does increase one’s feeling of well-being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo sometimes I practice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sit here in my closet and grimace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJanuary 18. 2 a.m. LOG OF YACHT ‘JULIET.’ Cayos Limones. NOTES AND REMARKS: We are inching toward middle of nowhere. Limones is an untouched archipelago of many sheltered islands w\/ fringing reefs \u0026amp; clear waters. Not one single man-made structure. Only the sound of the surf crashing against the windward reef. It’s the middle of the night \u0026amp; I can’t sleep. Just cleaned all the corroded connections on the battery. More company here than I would like, due to proximity to the mainland. Folks from all over the world. At least our kids have other kids to play w\/ \u0026amp; Juliet has other women to commiserate w\/ over warm white wine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI know it appears that what we are doing is radical. But the truth is, there are so many people out here. Sprinkled all around the hydrosphere. Sailboats, sloops, catamarans, re-creations of famous schooners, wealthy paranoids, retirees, people traveling with cats, people traveling w\/ lizards, people sick of giving one quarter of their income to the government, free spirits, charlatans, and yes, children. There are thousands of children sailing this world as we speak, some who’ve never lived on land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWe say we want kids to be joyful\/unmaterialistic\/resilient. That’s what sailing kids are like. They climb masts \u0026amp; can correctly identify obscure plant life. They don’t care what somebody looks like when they meet them, they some- times don’t even speak the same language, but they work it out. They don’t sit around ranking one kind of life against another. 71% of the earth is ocean. These kids literally can- not believe they are the center of the world. Because where would that be, exactly? They measure their days against a candid \u0026amp; endless horizon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet me begin by saying that buying a boat was the most absurd idea I’d ever heard. I’d never boarded anything but a ferry in my life, and Michael hadn’t sailed since he was in college.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’ve got to be kidding me, I said to him. You want me, and our two little kids, to live on a boat with you in the middle of the sea?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust for a year, he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t even know how to sail, Michael!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou don’t \u003ci\u003eneed\u003c\/i\u003e to know how to sail, he said. All you need to know is which way to point the boat. I can teach you the rest as we go.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’re insane, I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBut even Juliet was hard to convince. How do you sell your wife on the benefits of assuming risk? After all, if your wife is like mine, she probably married you for your stability.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn order to convince Juliet to buy the boat, I had to channel that great salesman—Artist of Spit and Staples, Prankster, Tightwad—my dad, Glenn Partlow. Nothing made Dad happier than sailing on Lake Erie in his old Westsail 32. He’d bought her on a lark from some guy at work who was trying to get rid of her quick. Those days, apparently even a super- vising technician at the GM plant could afford a boat. He kept her at a marina on Lake Erie about a half hour’s drive from our house. My sister Therese joined us for the first several outings, but she got seasick. After that, it was just me \u0026amp; Dad on a boat neither of us deserved to sail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe boat was named ‘Odille.’ Probably somebody’s old flame. My mom didn’t want anything to do w\/ the boat. She was completely absorbed by raising us, which is not to say this was good for her or for us. It was just what moms like her in Ashtabula, Ohio, did at the time. She’d drive us around, handing us our trumpet case or our paper-bag lunch. When Dad \u0026amp; I went sailing on ‘Odille,’ she didn’t complain. At least not to me.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWe couldn’t have taken more than 2 dozen voyages on that boat, but they clog my memory. I remember the sea- glass green surface of that windy lake, the short fetch of the waves. If I wanted to see my 13th year of life, I had to learn fast. Which sheet to pull, which one to tie off, how to ready the lines for Dad, when to ask questions, when to shut up. I didn’t want to bother him. He looked so important at the helm.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhen I was in 10th grade, GM offered dad a transfer from Parma, Ohio, to Pittsburgh. For reasons I never inquired about, he took the deal \u0026amp; sold the Westsail.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHe set us up in a modest brick house on a hillside in the City of Bridges, the steep streets of which had no traction in the ice.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis last detail, of course, rearranged my life.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eOf course\u003c\/i\u003e I said no. My first reaction was shock. I thought he’d lost his mind. Me and the kids living on a boat? Michael might as well have said, Let’s live upside down and walk on the ceiling.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMore than once, Juliet pointed out that my father died when he was just a little older than I am now. So maybe I was feeling something breathing down my neck—i.e. eternal quietus? And she could understand how spooky that might feel but maybe could this particular psychodrama be solved w\/ something less extreme, like a triathalon?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI don’t disagree! She was right. Every marriage needs one skeptic to keep it safe. But a marriage of two skeptics will fail to thrive.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMichael and I both recognized we had problems, we just couldn’t agree on the solution. I think what was happening was, I wasn’t just talking about the implausible plan to walk away from our house and the kids’ schools and Michael’s job, no matter how assured we would be of getting these things back. \u003ci\u003eI\u003c\/i\u003e was wondering, whether we were to go or to stay, what would we do— about us?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eYou think this will solve all our problems. It’s magical thinking, Michael. It’s the way a child thinks.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302548820197,"sku":"NP9780525656494","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525656494.jpg?v=1767736235","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/sea-wife-isbn-9780525656494","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}