Colum McCann's 6 favorite books that take place at sea
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Colum McCann's new novel, Twist, tracks a group at sea tasked with repairing the underwater cables through which we all communicate. Below, the National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin recommends six other ocean tales.
'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemingway (1952)
I read this novel to my father when he was sick and lay dying in his hospital bed in Dublin. It was a profoundly cathartic experience for both of us. He understood perfectly the metaphors at hand: Sometimes he was the old man and sometimes it was me. I think the grand search at sea was gorgeously entwined with his journey to come. And we were both dreaming of lions. Buy it here.
'Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus' by Mary Shelley (1818)
This might, at first, seem to be a strange choice for a work that takes place at sea. But Shelley's novel begins with a startling scene of a dogsled, driven by a gigantic figure, fleeing across the Arctic ice. The novel, which is perfect for our times, is a moving exploration of science and philosophy and of course the damage we inflict on ourselves in our quest for power. Buy it here.
'Moby-Dick' by Herman Melville (1851)
You can't gather any collection of literary gems concerning the sea and not choose Moby-Dick, which is one of those books that makes its own world. It's an exploration into the depths of human consciousness; we all eventually become Ishmael in the hope to survive. Buy it here.
'The Shipping News' by E. Annie Proulx (1993)
Proulx's Pulitzer Prize–winner is a perfect exercise in language and story. Once you've read it, Quoyle, the main character, a jilted newspaper reporter, will never leave your mind. Buy it here.
'Desert Solitaire' by Edward Abbey (1968)
When there's not a drop of water around, then we realize that the whole world is an ocean. Reading this book—which is set almost exclusively in the desert, where Abbey worked as an Arches National Park ranger—makes you realize that if the desert were a bank we would have saved it a long time ago. By extension, the ocean too. Buy it here.
'A Goat's Song' by Dermot Healy (1994)
A masterpiece of Irish fiction, where the sea blows in on every word, A Goat's Song is steeped in alcohol and regret, but it is also the most gorgeous elegy to love and loss in recent memory. Buy it here.