From a Low and Quiet Sea

by Donal Ryan

This is the second of the 2018 Booker longlist of books that I have read.  I have read Warlight by Michael Ondaatje which is also nominated.... it was okay.  Not as good as some of his other books in my opinion.

The Ryan book is about three men: a Syrian doctor who is convinced to try to leave by his wife.  They are tricked by the people they pay money to, they had been promised a safe boat.  The actual boat is a dump, not seaworthy and when a storm occurs the Doctor's wife and daughter drown in the hold of the ship.  The Doctor ends up in a refugee camp but keeps getting rejected by countries because all he can do is talk about the trip and his insistence that his wife and daughter are still alive.

The second man is a successful business man who, while he has rejected the church, seems to want to confess all the bad and unethical things he has done in his life.

The third story is about a mother, grandfather and young man.  The young man and grandfather don't get along well.  The young man is working at a senior's home helping to keep an eye on residents and occasionally serving as a driver taking them to appointments or to visit their family.  One day the young man takes some of the residents out in a new bus the home has purchased.  Along the way the bus malfunctions but he is able to get it to limp to a repair shop.  He calls the home and gets someone to bring the old bus owned by the home and he delivers his people.  Later he goes to pick them up and is on his way back to the home when one of the ladies comments that one of the gents is missing.

The young man realizes he must have left the man on the first bus.  When he gets to the bus the man is dead.

As the story ends we find the Syrian doctor visiting the boy's mother (romantic attachment), that his grandfather had, in the past, had his reputation ruined by the dead man because he would not agree to sell his land to a developer.  So, all three stories are connected.

It was an okay story, interesting the way he connected the three lives.  However, I didn't find it brilliant or unique in any way.  I wonder why it got nominated for the Booker.