The Water in Between: A Journey at Sea

Sports & Outdoors

Patterson, Kevin

Biographies

Penguin

Born in the 1950s, Victoria knows nothing but the nomadic life of the Inuit until, at age ten, she is sent to a sanitarium to recover from tuberculosis. Six years later, she returns to a radically different world, a stranger to her family and culture. She marries a non-Inuit, Robertson; as their children gravitate toward the pop culture of the mainland, and as her husband exploits the economic opportunities that the Arctic offers, Victoria is torn between her family and her ancestors, between the communal life of the North and the material life of the “South.” Kevin Patterson, acclaimed author of The Water in Between and Country of Cold, exposes the consequences of cultural assimilation, and the toll that modernization takes on communities in this epic novel of the Arctic.

Consumption

Literature & Fiction

United States

Anchor

A remarkable collection of first-hand accounts written by soldiers, doctors and aid workers on the front lines of Canada’s war in Afghanistan. Visceral, intimate and captivating in ways no other telling could be, Outside the Wire features nearly two dozen stories by Canadians on the front lines in Afghanistan, including the previously unpublished letters home of Captain Nichola Goddard, the first female NATO soldier killed in combat, and an introductory reflection by Roméo Dallaire. Collected here are stories of battle and the more subtle engagements of this little-understood war: the tearful farewells; the shock of immersion into a culture that has been at war for thirty years; looking a suicide bomber in the eye the moment before he strikes; grappling with mortality in the Kandahar Field Hospital; and the unexpected humour that leavens life in a warzone. Throughout each piece the passion of those engaged in rebuilding this shattered country shines through, a glimmer of optimism and determination so rare in multinational military actions–and so particularly Canadian. In Outside the Wire, award-winning author Kevin Patterson and co-editor Jane Warren have rediscovered the valour and horror of sacrifice in this, the definitive account of the modern Canadian experience of war.

Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of Its Participants

History

Warren, Jane

Military

Random House Canada

A remarkable collection of first-hand accounts written by soldiers, doctors and aid workers on the front lines of Canada’s war in Afghanistan. Visceral, intimate and captivating in ways no other telling could be, Outside the Wire features nearly two dozen stories by Canadians on the front lines in Afghanistan, including the previously unpublished letters home of Captain Nichola Goddard, the first female NATO soldier killed in combat, and an introductory reflection by Roméo Dallaire. Collected here are stories of battle and the more subtle engagements of this little-understood war: the tearful farewells; the shock of immersion into a culture that has been at war for thirty years; looking a suicide bomber in the eye the moment before he strikes; grappling with mortality in the Kandahar Field Hospital; and the unexpected humour that leavens life in a warzone. Throughout each piece the passion of those engaged in rebuilding this shattered country shines through, a glimmer of optimism and determination so rare in multinational military actions–and so particularly Canadian. In Outside the Wire, award-winning author Kevin Patterson and co-editor Jane Warren have rediscovered the valour and horror of sacrifice in this, the definitive account of the modern Canadian experience of war. From the Hardcover edition.

Asia

Vintage Canada

From the award-winning author of The Water in Between and Consumption, the definitive novel of the Afghanistan war. News From the Red Desert begins in late 2001, when everyone believes the war is already won and the Taliban defeated, then leaps late in the severely escalated conflict--into the mess, and death, and confusion. At its heart are the men and women who have come to Afghanistan to seek purpose, and adventure, and danger, by engaging in the most bewitching and treacherous of human pursuits: making war. It's the story of Deirdre O'Malley, an American journalist who had been covering municipal politics when the airplanes went into the towers. Now a war correspondent, she has come to love the soldiers she covers and to grieve so hard over their wounds and their deaths she considers herself a member of the mission too. Embedded with Canadian infantry, she can't ignore the situation on the ground. Her loyalty toward her ex-lover, the American general who has taken command of the theatre, wavers as the war wavers, and the use of torture and the slaughter of civilians is brought to light. Fuelling the tension is a melancholy American supply sergeant who accidentally releases a trove of war porn online that sparks a furious hunt for the person who leaked it. Fearing arrest at any moment, he has stayed on too long in Kandahar for reasons he doesn't understand himself. Caught up in these currents are the Pakistanis who operate the Green Beans café on the Kandahar Airfield, led by optimist Rami Issay, who wants to lighten his customers' hearts (and make a success of his business) by running film and chess clubs in the only zone of recreation on the base. But the war intrudes even into the lives of the well-intentioned. In a powerful climax that tests everyone's loyalty and faith, the essential chaos of violence asserts itself. Love and desire endure, but no-one escapes unscathed.

News From the Red Desert: A novel

Literary

From the award-winning author of Country of Cold and Consumption, the definitive novel of the Afghanistan war. News From the Red Desert begins on the Kandahar Airfield in late 2001, when everyone believes the war is won and the Taliban defeated. Then it leaps late in the severely escalated conflict, peering into the experiences of the men and women who have come to Afghanistan to seek purpose, adventure and danger, by engaging in the treacherous pursuit of making war. It follows Deirdre O'Malley, an American war correspondent standing in the thick of things. Even as she bonds with the soldiers she covers, she grapples with wavering loyalties toward her ex-lover, the American general running the theatre. Fuelling the tension is the melancholy American supply sergeant who accidentally releases a trove of war porn online. Fearing arrest at any moment, he has stayed on too long in Kandahar for reasons he doesn't understand himself. Caught up in these currents are the Pakistanis who operate the Green Beans cafe on the base, led by optimist Rami Issay, who wants to lighten his customers' hearts by running film and chess clubs on the premises. But the war intrudes even into the lives of the well-intentioned. In a powerful climax that tests everyone's loyalty and faith, the essential chaos of violence asserts itself. Love and desire endure, but no one escapes unscathed.

A high-seas adventure story that combines the wry wit and deep reflection of A Walk in the Woods with the action and suspense of A Perfect Storm. A stint in the army and a broken heart lead Kevin Patterson to the dock of a sailboat brokerage on Vancouver Island, where he stands contemplating the romance of the sea and his heartfelt desire to get away. By the end of the day, he finds himself the neophyte owner of a sailboat called the Sea Mouse. He also has a plan: to sail to Tahiti and back, and burn away his failings in hard miles at sea. First he recruits a traveling companion, another brokenhearted guy who at least knows how to sail. They set out like the Two Stooges-Seasick and Slapstick. Days without wind are days to kick back on the deck with a beer and a man-versus-nature adventure book that valorizes their journey into an essential quest for manhood. But eventually the voyage begins to take on a sharper edge. On a relentless beat across the South Pacific, they run across one solitary male sailor after another on the lam, not heroes but refugees. Both the literature and the reality of masculine adventure start to pall, and Patterson begins to long for home. But to get there, he faces the toughest of trials, single-handedly sailing the Sea Mouse across the North Pacific and through a four-day gale, conscious that no one on earth knows where he is or that he might die. The illusion that men are best tested by loneliness and adversity cracks in the force of the wind and the terrifying beat of the water, and The Water In Between becomes a hymn, not to running away but to heading home.

The Water in Between

Nan A. Talese

Wise, funny and beautifully written, The Water in Between is an inspiring-and cautionary-tale for anyone who has ever wanted to escape into another life. A stint in the army and a broken heart lead Kevin Patterson, who has never sailed before, to buy a 37-foot sailboat. He recruits a more experienced sailor-another brokenhearted guy-and together they set sail for Tahiti, hoping to burn away their miseries in hard miles at sea. At first Patterson finds life under sail distinctly less heroic than the travel literature that has inspired him. But when his companion remains behind, Patterson single-handedly sails his boat across the North Pacific and through a perilous four-day gale, truly testing himself against the elements.

Water Sports

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

A Vintage Tales Book. Graduating from high school in a small Canadian town, you are immediately faced with two stark choices: leave or stay. Country of Cold follows the stories of a disparate group of Dunsmuir, Manitoba’s class of 1980, most of whom leave, imagining that life happens elsewhere. They flee to the freedom of the big cities of the world and the far corners of Canada, but many end up feeling rootless and alone, whether as a physician in an Arctic Inuit community, a temporary boyfriend in Paris, or a student in the McGill Ghetto. The characters attempt to unravel the impossible puzzles of adulthood -- searching for answers by hurtling over falls in a barrel, building a boat to escape a teen-daughter-gone-bad, or embarking on an unlikely affair with a two-bit wrestler. Kevin Patterson won international accolades for his wonderfully observed and moving memoir, The Water in Between. This fiction debut confirms him as a major new literary talent. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Country of Cold: Stories of Sex and Death

Contemporary

In Rankin Inlet, a small town bordering the Arctic Ocean, the lives of the Inuit are gradually changing. The caribou and seals are no longer plentiful, and Western commerce has come to the community through a proposed diamond mine. Victoria Robertson wakes to a violent storm, her three children stirring in the dark. Her father, Emo, a legendary hunter who has come in off the land to work in a mine, checks to see if the family is all right. So does her Inuit lover, as Victoria’s British husband is away on business. Thus the reader enters into the modern contradictions of the Arctic—walrus meat and convenience food, midnight sun and 24-hour satellite TV, dog teams and diamond mines—and into the heart of Victoria's internal exile. Born on the tundra in the 1950s, Victoria knows nothing but the nomadic life of the Inuit until, at the age of ten, she is diagnosed with tuberculosis and evacuated to a southern sanitarium. When she returns home six years later, she finds a radically different world, where the traditionally rootless tribes have uneasily congregated in small communities. And Victoria has become a stranger to her family and her culture. Victoria compounds her marginalization by marrying a non-Inuit, Robertson, the manager of the town store. Over the years, as her children gravitate toward the pop culture of the mainland, and as her husband aggressively exploits the economic opportunities that the Arctic offers, Victoria feels torn between her family and her ancestors, between the communal life of the North and the material life of the “South.” Through Victoria, Kevin Patterson deftly exposes the costs and consequences of cultural assimilation, and the emotional toll that such significant lifestyle changes take on communities. Spanning countries, generations, and cultures, Consumption is an epic novel of the Arctic, and a penetrating portrait of generational division and cultural dissonance.

Consumption: A novel

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Books by Patterson, Kevin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Patterson, Kevin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Water in Between: A Journey at Sea

Consumption

Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of Its Participants

Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of Its Participants

News From the Red Desert: A novel

News From the Red Desert: A novel

The Water in Between

The Water in Between: A Journey at Sea

Country of Cold: Stories of Sex and Death

Consumption: A novel