About the Book
Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach and scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.
When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?
Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.
Format: Hardback (176 pages) Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 17th July 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
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My Review
Seascraper, winner of the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026, is a book that simply oozes atmosphere. Although set in the early 1960s, it has a timeless quality.
Twenty-year old Thomas scrapes for shrimps in the same way his grandfather did before him, painstakingly with horse and cart, often with little to show for it at the end of a session. It’s tough, grimy, soul-destroying work. We get the gritty details of his life: the ingrown toenails, the reek of sweat, fish guts and horse dung, the salt-encrusted clothing. But there are lovely touches too such as Thomas’s tender care for his horse.
Thomas’s days are governed by the rhythm of the tides and by the weather. He navigates the potentially treacherous, shifting sands by a combination of instinct and memory. Most other shankers have switched to motor rigs but Thomas hasn’t the funds to buy one even if he wanted to. Instead by necessity he remains ‘steadfast to the old ways’.
A sense of being trapped permeates the novel.Thomas’s mother gave birth to him out of wedlock and has been ostracised by the community as a result, albeit unfairly. Her life is one of unending domestic chores with only the odd night out providing fleeting opportunities for company. Thomas harbours ambitions to be a folk musician but lacks the confidence even to tell his mother that he owns a guitar, let alone to perform in public. Instead he keeps his guitar hidden away in the stable, practising in secret.
Then, out of nowhere, the possibility of a different future appears in the shape of Edgar Acheson, a Hollywood movie director with a dream of his own, namely to restore his reputation by directing a film adaptation of a cherished rather otherwordly book. He believes that Thomas’s stretch of beach is the perfect location. ‘It’s sort of funny… I feel I’ve got the strongest sense of what this beach could give the picture. There’s a mood out here – it’s absolutely right. I mean it’s like I’ve been out here before.’
He offers what to Thomas is a life-changing sum of money if he will take him out on the beach. Edgar’s exuberance overcomes any misgivings Thomas may have; he knows what dangers lie out there. It turns out he’s right to have been wary because what he experiences that night is an uncanny combination of distorted version of reality and wish fulfillment. Eventually illusions are shattered but there’s also a tantalising glimpse of the possibility of a different future.
I’m not quite sure how the author managed to capture so much in so few pages but he did, brilliantly. Seascraper has a quiet intensity that is completely mesmerising and is fully deserving of all the plaudits it has received.
In three words: Atmospheric, immersive, poignant
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About the Author
Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. Seascraper is his fifth novel. His previous works have been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2014, he won France’s Prix du roman Fnac. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at King’s College London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.
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