The Boatmaker

Book excerpt: Longlisted for the 2016 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction Part fable, part allegory, The Boatmaker is the haunting and passionate story of a voyage of self-discovery. A fierce and complicated man wakes from a fever dream compelled to build a boat and sail away from the isolated island where he was born. Encountering the wider world for the first time, the reluctant hero falls into a destructive love affair, is swept up into a fanatical religious movement, and finds himself a witness to racial hatred unlike anything he’s ever known. The boatmaker is tempted, beaten, and betrayed: his journey marked by chilling episodes of violence and horror while he struggles to summon the strength to make his own way. The Boatmaker is a fable for our times, a passionate love story, and an odyssey of self-discovery.