The Painted Ocean

When I was a little girl, my dad left me and my mum, and he never came back. And you're supposed to be gutted when that happens. But secretly I preferred it without him, cos it meant I had my mum completely to myself, without having to share her with anyone. And I sort of inherited all the affection she used to give to my dad - like he'd left it behind for me as a gift, to say sorry for deserting me

So says eleven year old Shruti of her broken home in suburban middle England. But hopes of her mother's affection are in vain: speaking little English, and fluent in only Hindi and Punjabi, Shruti's mother is lost, and soon falls prey to family pressure to remarry. To find another husband means returning to India and leaving Shruti behind.

Meanwhile at school a new arrival, the indomitable Meena, dispenses with Shruti's bullying problems and transforms her day to day life. Desperate for companionship Shruti latches on to Meena to the point of obsession, following her through high school and on to university. But when Meena invites Shruti to join her on holiday in India, she has no idea how dangerous her obsession will turn out to be...

Gabriel Packard's THE PAINTED OCEAN has been described by Colum McCann 'as fearless tour de force. It is a rare achievement - an emotionally rich work of literature, delivered in the form of a gripping, page-turning story. The depiction of a British Indian childhood and adolescence is utterly compelling, as is the allegorical exploration of the human condition.'

“Gabriel Packard has written the sort of book publishers, readers, the whole world is hungry for: a thrilling and literate debut, a smart page-turner that takes your emotions and wraps them around its brutal, quick fist. I sat to read the first page of this novel and blew the rest of my weekend finishing the whole blessed thing.-- Darin Strauss”

Gabriel Packard is a major new literary talent, and his debut novel Enter Mariners Wet is a fearless tour de force. It is a rare achievement-an emotionally rich work of literature, delivered in the form of a gripping, page-turning story. The depiction of a British Indian childhood and adolescence is utterly compelling, as is the allegorical exploration of the human condition. - Colum McCann

Gabriel Packard's debut is unlike any other. Told by the ill-fated but indomitable Shruti, whose lively, contemporary voice masks great pain, the novel ranges from her bitter childhood in southern England to her extraordinary imprisonment on a desert island in the Indian Ocean. Shruti's experience hovers somewhere between the dark world we know, and an imaginary darker still. Enter Mariners Wet is an unsettling and unforgettable book. - Claire Messud

Dreamlike in its intensity, epic in its scope, Enter Mariners Wet is a powerful fiction debut. Gabriel Packard has a style that is propulsive, unforgettable and utterly unique. - SAID SAYRAFIEZADEH

Gabriel Packard has written the sort of book publishers, readers, the whole world is hungry for: a thrilling and literate debut, a smart page-turner that takes your emotions and wraps them around its brutal, quick fist. I sat to read the first page of this novel and blew the rest of my weekend finishing the whole blessed thing. - Darin Strauss

Enter Mariners Wet has the heart and intelligence and verbal brilliance of Charles Dickens, and a young narrator who is as lively, smart, and full of feeling as, say, Huck Finn. Gabriel Packard's debut novel, which recounts the painful coming of age of a British-born first-generation-immigrant girl from India, during the '90s, has the potential to be one of those books that everybody wants to read-the humanity of the main character under extreme duress, and the marvelous idiom in which she speaks, are both hauntingly compelling. As with Dickens and Twain, the voice that Packard has created is complex, morally challenging, and a true literary achievement. - Tom Sleigh

Gabriel is the Associate Director of the Creative Writing MFA Programme at Hunter College, and has previously given seminars at Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Cornell, Dartmouth and Wellesley. He writes a monthly 'Writers on Writing' column for The Writer magazine, and his journalism has appeared in more than 100 publications worldwide, including New York Magazine, The Village Voice and Poets & Writers. He has a BA in English from Oxford University and an MFA in fiction writing from Hunter College. He has also worked as a researcher for the novelists E.L. Doctorow, Peter Carey and worked with Jonathan Franzen on the novel he is currently completing.

When I was a little girl, my dad left me and my mum, and he never came back. And you're supposed to be gutted when that happens. But secretly I preferred it without him, cos it meant I had my mum completely to myself, without having to share her with anyone. And I sort of inherited all the affection she used to give to my dad - like he'd left it behind for me as a gift, to say sorry for deserting me So says eleven year old Shruti of her broken home in suburban middle England. But hopes of her mother's affection are in vain: speaking little English, and fluent in only Hindi and Punjabi , Shruti's mother is lost, and soon falls prey to family pressure to remarry. To find another husband means returning to India and leaving Shruti behind.Meanwhile at school a new arrival, the indomitable Meena, dispenses with Shruti's bullying problems and transforms her day to day life. Desperate for companionship Shruti latches on to Meena to the point of obsession, following her through high school and on to university. But when Meena invites Shruti to join her on holiday in India, she has no idea how dangerous her obsession will turn out to be...Gabriel Packard's THE PAINTED OCEAN has been described by Colum McCann 'as fearless tour de force. It is a rare achievement - an emotionally rich work of literature, delivered in the form of a gripping, page-turning story. The depiction of a British Indian childhood and adolescence is utterly compelling, as is the allegorical exploration of the human condition.'

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