Nominated for Australia's Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book.
David Norfolk, an archaeologist searching for a sixteenth-century Portuguese ship, long rumored to be buried beneath sand dunes of southern Australia, unearths instead the body of a man apparently murdered fifty years ago. Nearing the end of his funding and absolutely desperate to find the ship, David hears about a decrepit old man named Kurt Seligman, who lies dying in a shack near the excavation site. Hoping by some chance that Seligman may know something about the location of the Portuguese ship and perhaps even about the identity of the dead man, David begins a conversation that yields a strange and impassioned tale, a cryptic confession of obsessive love and betrayal in the 1930s and '40s. Sensuous, erudite, and framed by sixteenth- and eighteenth-century maritime history and myth, Wrack spins a web of lies, sex, and regret that is as unusual as it is beautiful.
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Very interesting book filled with mystery, history, and romance. Bradley even makes Renaissance mapmaking facinating. It was a bit drawn out on some places, but otherwise a very nice read.
David Norfolk, an archaeologist searching for a sixteenth-century Portuguese ship, long rumored to be buried beneath sand dunes of southern Australia, unearths instead the body of a man apparently murdered fifty years ago. Nearing the end of his funding and absolutely desperate to find the ship, David hears about a decrepit old man named Kurt Seligman, who lies dying in a shack near the excavation site. Hoping by some chance that Seligman may know something about the location of the Portuguese ship and perhaps even about the identity of the dead man, David begins a conversation that yields a strange and impassioned tale, a cryptic confession of obsessive love and betrayal in the 1930s and '40s. Sensuous, erudite, and framed by sixteenth- and eighteenth-century maritime history and myth, Wrack spins a web of lies, sex, and regret that is as unusual as it is beautiful.
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Very interesting book filled with mystery, history, and romance. Bradley even makes Renaissance mapmaking facinating. It was a bit drawn out on some places, but otherwise a very nice read.
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