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From Michael Ondaatje: a stunning new novel?by turns poignant and electrifying?about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a sea voyage.
Knopf
October 2011
On Sale: October 4, 2011
256 pages
ISBN: 0307700119
EAN: 9780307700117
Hardcover
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Fiction
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards
a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the
“cat’s table”—as far from the Captain’s Table as can be—with
a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys,
Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the
Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the
Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to
another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But
there are other diversions as well: one man talks with them
about jazz and women, another opens the door to the world of
literature. The narrator’s elusive, beautiful cousin Emily
becomes his confidante, allowing him to see himself “with a
distant eye” for the first time, and to feel the first
stirring of desire. Another Cat’s Table denizen, the shadowy
Miss Lasqueti, is perhaps more than what she seems. And very
late every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, his
crime and his fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt
them forever.
As the narrative moves between
the decks and holds of the ship and the boy’s adult years,
it tells a spellbinding story—by turns poignant and
electrifying—about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries
of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly
with a spectacular sea voyage.
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