博客來2025布克獎入圍作品
20歲的湯馬斯跟著母親，在英國北部的郎斐利過著悠閒而緩慢的生活。他繼承了祖父的生意，成為一名捕蝦人。每天一大早駕著馬車前往下著細雨的海邊撈蝦，下午則忙著把捕到的漁獲賣出去。結束後努力洗掉身上的鹽分和髒污，湯瑪斯一邊暗戀著鄰居瓊恩．惠氏，一邊彈奏吉他。其實他的骨子裡是一個民謠歌手，但這個夢想只能一直埋藏在心中。
這天，鎮上來了一位來自美國的訪客，要湯瑪斯協助他尋找最適合拍片的場景。湯瑪斯逐漸開始信任這位叫艾格的陌生人，好萊塢的燦爛光影彷彿喚醒了湯瑪斯的企圖心，開始想像過著不一樣的人生。只是艾格究竟有多少說辭是真的？而他帶來的啟發與靈感，又能引領著湯瑪斯走多遠呢？
《Seascraper》描述平靜生活如何在一夕之間被顛覆，以及一個處處受限的年輕男子努力突破舒適圈，追求夢想中的成就。(文／博客來外文館)
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE
＂Seascraper shimmers, salt-flecked and rippling. It swells with tense, memorable moments...Poignant, authentic, and hopeful.＂ --The Spectator
＂In two words: Short. Brilliant.＂ --The Times (London)
Twenty-year-old Thomas Flett lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, Northern England, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the drizzly shore to scrape for shrimp, and spends the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and sea-scum, pining for his neighbor, Joan Wyeth, and playing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but this remains a private dream.
Then a mysterious American arrives in town and enlists Thomas’s help in finding a perfect location for his next movie. Though skeptical at first, Thomas learns to trust the stranger, Edgar, and, shaken from the drudgery of his days by the promise of Hollywood glamour, begins to see a different future for himself. But how much of what Edgar claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?
Haunting, timeless, and stunningly atmospheric, Seascraper tells the story of a quiet existence upturned over the span of one day, and a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.
＂A small wonder...Wood delivers so much in few words...reads like the forging of a new myth.＂--Financial Times
＂Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written.＂ --Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain
