Review: Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
A portrait of a young man living in a desolate seaside town in 1960s Britain, this Booker longlisted novel thrives in the observation of details
Published just about a week before being nominated for the 2025 Booker Prize, Benjamin Wood’s fifth novel is a testament to a life lived in confinement of sorts. Seascraper is tagged as ‘a mesmerising portrait of a young man confined in by his class and the ghosts of his family’s past, dreaming of artistic fulfilment.’
The reader follows Tom, who likes to be referred to as Thomas Flett by strangers. He has just hit his twenties. He left school midway to be a shanker under the judicious guidance of his grandfather, who he called Pops. Now, when he is not home with his delirious mother — who is the talk of the town — he hunts for shrimp, or tries his hand at the guitar. He lives a slow life that knows no change. The only thing that ever shifts is the tide, and his horse’s mood. It is the 1960s and the UK town feels like it could never keep pace with life beyond. But Tom’s life suddenly begins to look different when a stranger comes to shoot a film in the dreary town. He makes Tom an offer he cannot refuse. At the next tide, Tom sets off with this rather sensitive and generous man into a sea with sinkpits that are waiting to engulf the entourage.
The stage is set from page 1: ‘Thomas Flett relies upon the ebb tide for a living, but he knows the end is near.’ It comes as no surprise when the story turns atmospheric to describe exactly what this young man undergoes living in a gloomy beach town with a mother who complains of constant aches. The desolation and the pain in their lives is palpable as the author steers the narrative from the sea to the family and Tom’s life history. The book is reminiscent of Claire Keegan’s 2022-Booker shortlisted novella Small Things Like These, where we see an Ireland preparing for Christmas. In both the stories, we are let into lives through a setting that haunts the prose more than the story itself. Remarkably, in less than 200 pages, both books succeed in imprinting upon the reader what few texts can.
The Keegan comparison is not a suggestion that Wood’s writing is any less original. The thoughtful engagement with the story of a young man in 1960s England is refreshing; it’s a relief not to encounter yet another middle-aged man regretting choices in a small town, or another story of a young man solving life’s myriad problems in the age of social media. Even as the reader is let into Tom’s mind, they do not get a sense of him in absolute terms. Wood handles his youth with sensitivity and skill. He knows exactly which parts of Tom to reveal and where to draw the boundary when it comes to the other characters and the readers too. So, when, towards the end, Tom is confronted with the reality of the stranger, he holds on to what he believes is conscientiousness. The character in the scene and the reader prod him to think otherwise but his stubborn hold over what he imagines to be the right course of action comes as a beautiful and somewhat heartbreaking portrayal of a young man’s vision.
The novel thrives in Wood’s observation of details: From ‘Her single denture baths inside a glass upon the windowsill’ and ‘in what fashion he should braid the other twin to mend a net’ to ‘The waters shushing him. It’s lapping at his ears. The sea has come at last to bury him’. The writing is a sensuous treat in the way it uses objects to arouse the reader’s interest in Tom’s world. Wood’s research and presentation of the act of shanking without the professional jargon is praiseworthy. It infuses the novel with the ghost lurking in Tom’s life and in those of the townspeople live with the sea constantly whispering in their ears. Some of these details remain long after the novel is over and the reader is left with just the thought of Tom looking at his life somewhere by the sea.
But he isn’t the only character the reader thinks of long after the book is put away. There is the stranger who comes wrapped in Hollywood glamour. A war veteran, a reader, and an ambitious director, Edgar Acheson believes, ‘The world is so full of noise and most of it is pointless.’ Breaking the routines, set dreams and small desires of Tom’s life, he reeks of both, hope and despair. We follow them on their strange adventure to measure the sea through photographic lenses, but also lean in as an audience to their aspirations and small disappointments. Edgar and Tom are seemingly different and yet when they give a hand to each other, it feels as though they are one. They feed each other the dreams that lie unfulfilled in their own little lives.
Seascraper is sure to make its way into the reader’s heart with its piquancy and softness. This is a novel that makes the reader pine for more even as they feel contentment. Few books are capable of keeping readers hooked. Fans of Claire Keegan, Edna O’Brien and Anees Salim will find joy in this novel.
Rahul Singh is a writer and an academic based in Kolkata. He writes about books at (@rahulzsing) X and (@fook_bood) Instagram.
