Seascraper by Benjamin Wood audiobook review – seascraper thing | Fiction

Seascraper opens with Thomas Flett waking up at 5 in the morning, eating his mother’s cooked breakfast and pulling on his oilcloth. Thomas is 20 years old, although the pain in his joints makes him feel very old – a sign of the strain of his work. The job is rocking: hauling fish from the beach at low tide using a horse-drawn cart. Thomas does the same work that his grandfather did years before he came and that men from the north west of England have been doing for 500 years. But his heart is no longer in it: the pay is poor and the work is lonely and careless. He dreams of becoming a regular musician, playing to audiences in back rooms and parlors, and, unknown to his mother, has been working on some music.

Benjamin Wood’s novel, which spans two days, is full of atmosphere and detail; you can smell the fresh fish and seaweed as Thomas stands on the beach picking his morning’s catch. An audio book narrated by Wood, whose gentle and pleasant narration underlines Thomas’s hardened existence and his desire for a different future.

One day when he got home, Thomas found a tall, confident American man drinking tea with his mother. Edgar Acheson says he is a film director and wants to film on the beach after seeing Thomas at work there; he asks if he can give him a guided tour for £100. At first Thomas is skeptical, excited by the prospect of making money and breaking his habit. But who is Acheson who he says he is?

Available via Penguin Audio, 5hr 22min

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