Daniel GumbinerBesprekingen

What a sweet story of forgiveness, understanding and finding your way in between stations.

This is a quiet, meditative book which combines a fictionalized version of Shopcraft as Soulcraft with the experiences of an opiod addict. Berg is a 28 year old who developed his addiction after a severe concussion. He leaves his high-paying but soul-sucking job in the San Francisco tech industry to move up to the Muire (Marin) County coast. He settles in Talinas, which is a very lightly fictionalized mashup of the small towns around Tomales Bay and Point Reyes, and he takes up boatbuilding with a mentor named Alejandro. He tries to get himself clean and figure out what to do with his life.

Talinas and the surrounding towns and people come across as a rural NorCal version of the quirky towns and townspeople we regularly see on TV. It's more Cicely, AK or Stars Hollow than Twin Peaks, but the townspeople all fill out the various eccentric-but-lovable categories. Alejandro is an idealized version of the Wise Old Man Who Has Seen Everything. He has many, many talents, a lovely wife and family, and a farm that supports them all. Well, actually his boatbuilding business supports them, and the main customer is a drug dealer (only marijuana, none of the bad stuff) who transports his cargo from Mexico to the US in Alejandro's beautiful wooden sailboats.

There's a lot about boatbuilding. A lot. Also a fair amount about fishing and daily life in a coastal rural town. It mostly captures the feel of these places, although there are a few odd missteps, e.g.. in Norcal we call it Highway 1 or just 1, not "the" 1, the definite article is a SoCal thing. Also, radio stations west of the Mississippi start with K, not W, so the indie station WMUR would be KMUR. And there are barely any tourists, unlike the real Marin coast. But otherwise, it's pretty immersive and true to my experience.

The writing style is of the type that seems to be very popular now: it's not minimalist, exactly, but it's unadorned and focused on the mundane:

The best place to see a boat leave was Bear's Landing. These days it was a campground but, according to Alejandro, it had first been settled by Ed Vaquero, an American who gathered abalone and whose last name was not actually Vaquero. No one knew his real name, said Alejandro, but it was not Vaquero. In any case, if you climbed up on the dunes behind the campground at Bear's Landing, you had a panoramic view of the bay and the ocean and this is what Uffa, Berg, and Alejandro did the day Pat left for Mexico.

Berg's struggle with opiods is mostly well depicted, although one of his relapses functions a bit too much as a Black Moment plot device. There are a few other visible plot beats, but that's not surprising in a debut novel.

I enjoyed reading this, but I didn't feel as if I was getting something I hadn't read before. Berg himself wasn't all that interesting, and Alejandro was too idealized. He was supposedly considered crazy or near-crazy by some of the townspeople, and Berg occasionally wondered about this, but I didn't see anything in his actual behavior that couldn't be explained as personality traits. The women are ... fine? They're also idealized and not particularly interesting as people; they mostly are sympathetic and attractive and supportive (to be fair, though, they lead independent lives and aren't just appendages of the male characters).

This is very much a man's book, even though it's about not-quite-mature men in their 20s in a very 21stC way rather than a Hemingway, Mailer, or Updike 20thC way.

This is a work of fiction that puts you in the shoes of an addict. For the first time, I thought I could begin to imagine what struggling with an addiction was like, and how easy it is to slip back from sobriety. Great book, very interesting and sympathetic characters.

Berg has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and looks to find a job. He ends up getting one with a man who builds custom boats for clients some of which are involved in illegal activities. His boss Alejandro loves his craft and brings some stability and wisdom into Berg's life. He meets many unique people in the local community. This is a great debut novel with fully developed characters and a very realistic slice of life plot.

I only heard of this when it was longlisted for the National Book Award. The library queue was quite long (largely due to the few copies available).

It was worth the wait. I can't believe I have not seen/read more hype for this book.

Berg is a 20-something sales guy (or a programmer?) at a tech startup in San Francisco. After suffering a significant concussion, the doctors hand him Rx opioids. And there his real problems begin. He tries rehab, it doesn't work. So he leaves town. His girlfriend has a friend who needs a housesitter while she is out of the country, and Berg goes. To the small coastal town of Talinas (a stand-in for Bolinas?). He finds a job at a yacht club, and then becomes an apprentice to Alejandro, a local boatmaker. Alejandro is very smart, clever, and wise. He teaches Berg about boatbuilding, meditation, acceptance, and more. Berg makes friends and learns more about taking things as they come and asking for/accepting help.

This is one of those open-ended books that just stops, without any conclusion. Usually that drives me crazy, but somehow it works here. I can imagine the characters going on in their lives--with ups and downs, setbacks in work and play, and huge successes as well.

This is a sweet, good-natured novel in which nothing much happens, but I enjoyed the ride very much. It follows a year or so in the life of a feckless but decent young man grappling with an opioid habit and figuring out what his next steps in life are. The protagonist, Berg, is a bit lost, but he's also a good guy whom you sense will be OK, when his instincts lead him to boat-building and a tight little community as a way to keep himself afloat (zero pun intended, honestly) you can't help but root for him. Ultimately the book is a gentle tribute to the qualities of working with one's hands, learning a craft, talking to your neighbors, and taking your time with what you do. And you can't really argue with that, especially when a book is as nicely written and affable as this one.

Consider this novel a Northern Exposure (American television series) type of read where the characters are unique and the location of Talinas, California is like an island unto itself. A small town, where everyone seems to know each other. It is an escape people seem to gravitate to in order to start over, heal or simply get lost.
"Berg", the novel's main character, arrives in Talinas as an out of work, out of rehab Millenial who believes getting away from the big city will defuse his addiction to opiates. Yet, his appetite persists and it's through the soulful guidance of his employer, Alejandro, that he finds his life's calling. Well, his life's calling at the moment, for it seems the book is a reflection on the fact that life is a journey. Whether searching for happiness, safety, love, for purpose, we all need to find our way.
At the conclusion, eight year old Tess hopes to "have things figured out" by the age of 28. Yet, that's not always the case. Everyone has a different timeline and obstacles abound to steer one away from the anticipated goal forcing one to forge a new and unanticipated road.
It's a heavy thought, brought to you by this quiet and gentle read where not much seems to happen but the undertow, though not heavy handed, is engaging.