The Ordinary Seaman

By the author of The Long Night of the White Chickens: A novel of the perils, passions, and misadventures of a young Nicaraguan sailor trapped in Brooklyn. Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Publishers Weekly At nineteen, Esteban Gaitan is already a veteran of war. A Sandinista soldier and an avowed communist, Esteban leaves Nicaragua to begin a new life in America. It's the late 1980s when he, along with fourteen other men, arrive to form the crew of the Urus, a ship docked on a desolate Brooklyn pier. Elias and Mark, the owners of the Urus, hold the men captive, forcing them to work in a vain attempt to make the rotting vessel seaworthy. Without the means to return home, Esteban remains a virtual prisoner, haunted by the loss of the woman he loved during the war. Eventually, he sneaks off the ship, making nocturnal forays into Brooklyn, where he meets Joaquina, a Mexican immigrant who works as a manicurist, and begins to plot his permanent escape. Centering his novel around Esteban, but also telling the stories of his fellow landlocked sailors, Francisco Goldman proves once again that he is a major talent of great style and soul.