Sea State, Tabitha Lasley
Sea State, Tabitha Lasley
2 Rating(s)
List: $21.99 | Sale: $15.39
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Sea State
A Memoir

Author: Tabitha Lasley

Narrator: Billie Fulford-Brown

Unabridged: 6 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 12/07/2021


Synopsis

A Recommended Read from: Vogue * USA Today * The Los Angeles Times * Publishers Weekly * The Week * Alma * Lit HubA stunning and brutally honest memoir that shines a light on what happens when female desire conflicts with a culture of masculinity in crisisIn her midthirties and newly free from a terrible relationship, Tabitha Lasley quit her job at a London magazine, packed her bags, and poured her savings into a six-month lease on an apartment in Aberdeen, Scotland. She decided to make good on a long-deferred idea for a book about oil rigs and the men who work on them. Why oil rigs? She wanted to see what men were like with no women around.In Aberdeen, Tabitha became deeply entrenched in the world of roughnecks, a teeming subculture rich with brawls, hard labor, and competition. The longer she stayed, the more she found her presence had a destabilizing effect on the men—and her.Sea State is on the one hand a portrait of an overlooked industry: “offshore” is a way of life for generations of primarily working-class men and also a potent metaphor for those parts of life we keep at bay—class, masculinity, the transactions of desire, and the awful slipperiness of a ladder that could, if we tried hard enough, lead us to security.Sea State is on the other hand the story of a journalist whose professional distance from her subject becomes perilously thin. In Aberdeen, Tabitha gets high and dances with abandon, reliving her youth, when the music was good and the boys were bad. Twenty years on, there is Caden: a married rig worker who spends three weeks on and three weeks off. Alone and in an increasingly precarious state, Tabitha dives into their growing attraction. The relationship, reckless and explosive, will lay them both bare.

About Tabitha Lasley

Tabitha Lasley was a journalist for ten years. She has lived in London, Johannesburg, and Aberdeen. This is her first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Hank on February 19, 2022

I'm a little tardy, but apparently it's my job to rescue this book from some of the crappy reviews you all have been leaving here. You're all wrong! (Haha.) "Sea State" is beautifully written, utterly unpredictable, and, yes, you were right about one thing: not at all the book it set out to be. It b......more

Goodreads review by David on January 09, 2022

Caveat Emptor This review is written by a member of the merchant marine with over 30 years of experience with dangerous blue-collar jobs that demand a double life, with three or four months on and three or four months off. This experience comes with an abundance of having to listen to frustrated men......more

Goodreads review by Maisie on May 02, 2021

Being a female offshore worker I was very intrigued when I saw this book advertised. The author wished to see what men were like without having women around and although other reviewers perhaps did not agree I believe the author achieved her aim. Men are simple beings, not in a derogatory way but the......more

Goodreads review by Paul on February 28, 2021

An exasperating book, which is not the book described on the blurb. Ostensibly a look at the world of off-shore oil workers passing through Aberdeen, if you want to find out about "an overlooked industry and subculture" then read a different book. Despite interviewing over 100 men to create this boo......more

Goodreads review by Joanna on December 30, 2021

obsessed ... completely disregards a conventional framework of (ethical) journalism and instead is a v messy account of sex, affairs, drugs, misogyny, and is about the author and her own life as much if not more than it is about the men who work offshore. and it also does actually offer a fascinatin......more