Seascraper

Benjamin Wood

Language: English

Publisher: Scribner

Published: Sep 23, 2025

Description:

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...