Before the Wind: A novel

Author: Lynch, Jim

Edition: First American Edition

Features:

• Alfred a Knopf Inc

Format: Deckle Edge

Number Of Pages: 304

Details:

Following The Highest Tide, Border Songs, and Truth Like the Sun, Jim Lynch now gives us a grand and idiosyncratic family saga that will stand alongside Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion. Joshua Johannssen has spent all of his life surrounded by sailboats. His grandfather designed them, his father built and raced them, his Einstein-obsessed mother knows why and how they work (or not). For Josh and his two siblings, their backyard was the Puget Sound and sailing their DNA. But both his sister and brother fled many years ago: Ruby to Africa and elsewhere to do good works on land, and Bernard to god-knows-where at sea, a fugitive and pirate. Suddenly thirty-one, Josh—who repairs boats of all kinds in a Steinbeckian marina south of Seattle—is pained and confused by whatever the hell went wrong with his volatile family. His parents are barely speaking, his mystified grandfather is drinking harder, and he himself—despite an endless and comic flurry of online dates—hasn’t even come close to finding a girlfriend.  But when the Johannssens unexpectedly reunite for the most important race in these waters—all of them together on a classic vessel they made decades ago—they will be carried to destinies both individual and collective, and to a heart-shattering revelation. Past and present merge seamlessly and collide surprisingly as Jim Lynch reveals a family unlike any other, with the grace and humor and magic of a master storyteller.

Reviews:

“Lynch writes about the science of sailing and the grandeur of Puget Sound with a Melville-like attention to detail, but in the very concreteness of those details a kind of poetry emerges that speaks of the transience of life in all its terrible beauty and exhilarating terror.” —Booklist“Before the Wind, a cautionary tale of obsession and its price, is one of those impossible-to-put-down books that make ideal summer reading.” —Practical Sailor“In Before the Wind, author Jim Lynch tells the engaging tale of the Johannssens, a sailing family that's like a distillation of all the eccentric, funny and cranky sailors you've ever met. All too many writers have failed to convey both the technicalities and the spiritual joys of sailing in a manner that will engage the uninitiated without alienating the experienced, but lifelong sailor Lynch carries it off with this enjoyable read.” —Peter Nielsen, Sail Magazine“Lovably obsessive . . . an incredibly robust evocation of the sailing world of Puget Sound [with] profound familiarity. . . . Writers have long found poetry in sailing. Lynch’s skill is to find it in the mundane tasks and motley milieu that underpin glory on the water.” —Caitlin Macy, The New York Times Book Review 

“Breathtaking, emotionally satisfying and genuinely surprising . . . a magical, heartbreaking book.” —Robert Wierseman, The Toronto Star

“An affectionate and very funny tribute to the gentle madness of sailing diehards [that] will amuse even readers who can’t tell a jib from a spinnaker. . . . Lynch’s writing is propelled by his appreciation of the obsessives and eccentrics who populate the country’s marinas, convinced that ‘boats embody dreams like nothing else.’” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal“A brilliantly crafted family story that moves with the speed and elegance of one of the racing boats it so lovingly describes. . . . Indeed, the two aspects of this novel—the sailing yarn and the family history—are seamless. . . . It’s an exhilarating read.” —Claire Hopley, The Washington Times“A cautionary tale of obsession and what it can cost tells of three generations whose devotion to sailing holds them together until it sunders them…. Lynch dissects an uncommon family with, after all, more than one thing in common in a highly readable tale.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred) 

“Lynch writes both humorously and movingly about one family’s lifelong love of sailing. For those who love a good sea story, this novel will be as bracing as salt spray during an autumn sail.” —Pu...

EAN: 9780307958983

Release Date: 19-04-2016

Languages: English

Item Note: Great shape- pages are unmarked and sharp.Has a remainder mark. Hardcover Used - Very Good Ships fast! 2016First American Edition

Item Condition: UsedVeryGood

Binding: Hardcover