We, The Drowned

In 1848, the young men of Marstal leave their Danish island town to fight in the First Schleswig War, and the sea begins to claim them. Set in the Danish seafaring town of Marstal from 1848 to the end of the Second World War, We, The Drowned follows three generations shaped by salt water, violence, and absence. Laurids Madsen returns from battle restless and drawn back to the ocean. His son Albert grows up in the shadow of a father who belongs more to the sea than to his family, while Knud Erik Friis comes of age during the world wars, inheriting both pride and loss. Ships sink, wars erupt, and fortunes collapse as men are lost to shipwreck, combat, and ambition. Women become the authority at home; children grow up without fathers and the identity of the town begins to shift. Spanning the First Schleswig War and both World War I and World War II, We, The Drowned is nineteenth- and twentieth-century historical fiction full of adventure, longing, and the relentless pull of the sea. ‘Impressive... rich, powerful and rewarding’ Financial Times ‘An epic tale’ Independent ‘A book to sail into, to explore, to get lost in, but it is also a book that brings the reader, dazzled by wonders, home to the heart from which great stories come’ Joseph O'Connor

In 1848, the young men of Marstal leave their Danish island town to fight in the First Schleswig War, and the sea begins to claim them. Set in the Danish seafaring town of Marstal from 1848 to the end of the Second World War, We, The Drowned follows three generations shaped by salt water, violence, and absence. Laurids Madsen returns from battle restless and drawn back to the ocean. His son Albert grows up in the shadow of a father who belongs more to the sea than to his family, while Knud Erik Friis comes of age during the world wars, inheriting both pride and loss. Ships sink, wars erupt, and fortunes collapse as men are lost to shipwreck, combat, and ambition. Women become the authority at home; children grow up without fathers and the identity of the town begins to shift. Spanning the First Schleswig War and both World War I and World War II, We, The Drowned is nineteenth- and twentieth-century historical fiction full of adventure, longing, and the relentless pull of the sea. ‘Impressive... rich, powerful and rewarding’ Financial Times ‘An epic tale’ Independent ‘A book to sail into, to explore, to get lost in, but it is also a book that brings the reader, dazzled by wonders, home to the heart from which great stories come’ Joseph O'Connor

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. We, The Drowned is an epic novel about generations of men who go to sea and the women and children they leave behind. Filled with adventure, cannibals, shrunken heads, prophetic dreams, forbidden passions, cowards, heroes, tragedies, love, and survival, this book takes its place among the greatest seafaring literature. We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, Denmark, whose inhabitants sailed the world from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War. The novel tells of ships wrecked and blown up in wars, of places of terror and violence that continue to lure each generation. The result is a brilliant seafaring novel, a gripping saga encompassing industrial growth, the years of expansion and exploration, the crucible of the first half of the twentieth century, and most of all, the sea. " We, the Drowned sets sail beyond the narrow channels of the seafaring genre and approaches Tolstoy in its evocation of war's confusion, its power to stun victors and vanquished alike . . . A gorgeous, unsparing novel." -- Washington Post "A generational saga, a swashbuckling sailor's tale, and the account of a small town coming into modernity--both Melville and Steinbeck might have been pleased to read it." -- New Republic

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. We, The Drowned is an epic novel about generations of men who go to sea and the women and children they leave behind. Filled with adventure, cannibals, shrunken heads, prophetic dreams, forbidden passions, cowards, heroes, tragedies, love, and survival, this book takes its place among the greatest seafaring literature. We, the Drowned is the story of the port town of Marstal, Denmark, whose inhabitants sailed the world from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War. The novel tells of ships wrecked and blown up in wars, of places of terror and violence that continue to lure each generation. The result is a brilliant seafaring novel, a gripping saga encompassing industrial growth, the years of expansion and exploration, the crucible of the first half of the twentieth century, and most of all, the sea. " We, the Drowned sets sail beyond the narrow channels of the seafaring genre and approaches Tolstoy in its evocation of war's confusion, its power to stun victors and vanquished alike . . . A gorgeous, unsparing novel." -- Washington Post "A generational saga, a swashbuckling sailor's tale, and the account of a small town coming into modernity--both Melville and Steinbeck might have been pleased to read it." -- New Republic