Product Description

At forty, Mary South had a beautiful home, good friends, and a successful career in book publishing. But she couldn't help feeling that she was missing something intangible but essential. So she decided to go looking for it . . . at sea. Six months later she had quit her job, sold the house, and was living aboard a forty-foot, thirty-ton steel trawler she rechristened Bossanova. Despite her total lack of experience, South set out on her maiden voyage—a fifteen-hundred-mile odyssey from Florida to Maine—with her one-man, two-dog crew. But what began as the fulfillment of an idle wish became a crash course in navigating the complicated byways of the self.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #615622 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-22
• Released on: 2007-05-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A mid-life crisis and a latent sense of adventure caused book editor South to give up her life in publishing and take up residence on the Bossanova, a steel-hull trawler she bought before knowing how to captain it. The subtitle is largely hyperbolic-South's time "at sea" was really a short, if perilous, sail from Florida to Sag Harbor, where the boat is now docked-but South makes an interesting memoir from her skillful observation of the sailing life: "Good seamanship isn't the thoughtless instinct that salty dogs make it seem to be. It's the good habit of always asking yourself the right questions in the right order and answering them thoughtfully." Sometimes, she seems to have forgotten landlubbers might pick up her book; a sentences like, "One danger is that your bow will slow and your stern will get kicked out to the side, causing you to be beam-to," is just one head-scratcher of many for the uninitiated. She can be clumsy when transitioning between sailing stories and other aspects of her life ("This sailing was happiness. For a time, happiness, too, had been Leslie."), but her clear-eyed perspective and involving stories keep the narrative moving. This small but well-observed memoir is a worthwhile read for anyone stuck in the workaday rut.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
South, a successful book editor with stints at Ballantine and Houghton Mifflin, turns 40 with "a complicated concoction of ennui and despair," an average midlife crisis. But her next step is far from ordinary: she abruptly walks away from her well-paying job, sells her recently acquired house in Pennsylvania and most of her belongings, and buys a used 40-foot, 30-ton trawler, planning to pilot it up the coast from Florida to Maine. South recounts the rigors of her nine-week course at the Chapman School of Seamanship, where her classmates include an aging executive, a pony-tailed trucker, an Alaskan fisherman, and a documentary filmmaker. She describes her sometimes harrowing, always challenging trip up the Atlantic coast, assisted by a fellow student and novice, a trip marked by sudden storms, tricky inlet currents, long, energy-sapping days, and incredibly gorgeous seascapes. Though not as daring as "climbing Everest or sailing solo around the world," for South the voyage was the most "intensely meaningful" thing she had ever done, and well worth relinquishing luxuries and security. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"A fed-up publisher heads, via trawler, from Florida to Maine. It’s fun going along for the ride." -- People

"A worthwhile read for anyone stuck in the workaday rut." -- Publishers Weekly

"Engaging and lovable...Find a nice high chair and stand on it, applauding the existence of a writer and person like Mary South." -- George Saunders, author of In Persuastion Nation, Pastoralia, and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

"Even if your idea of the open waters is a swim-up bar at the Ritz-Carlton, South’s uncluttered style and hopeful prose is charming enough to make you happy to simply float peacefully along in its wake." -- Salon.com

"Mary South had the guts to do what many of us would love to do—throw one life overboard and see what happens next. Her story is brave and inspiring." -- Marianne Williamson, author of Illuminata

"Mary South’s courage and amazing sense of adventure is proof that if you allow your strength to come out, nothing can stop you. Her book is a must for all women!" -- Diane Von Furstenberg, author of Diane: A Signature Life

"Mary South’s gutsy decision to follow her heart is truly inspiring. I admire her courageous spirit and the fortitude she exhibits in pursuing her own happiness." -- Linda Greenlaw, bestselling author of The Hungry Ocean and The Lobster Chronicles

Customer Reviews

Hilarious, inspiring -- a most satisfying beach read
What a great book. I started it a few nights ago and I can't put it down. I don't know a thing about boating, but I've dreamed of doing something similar to this for years -- just quitting my job and following my dream. She's so honest, she makes it seem possible for anyone to just go out and make it happen. Some parts are so funny that I keep waking up my husband from laughing so hard. I'm going to give this book to all my friends for their birthdays.

Inspiring Career Change
A great story of an inquisitive mind looking for fulfillment by jumping ship on the present cruise of life to start a Voyangege to renew and continue a successful life by taking a different boat. The amount of courage taken to attempt such a change is no less than a trip through space, but this is down home and shows us the challenge we each have in our own back yard. So well written we can all identify with the exposure of her life and its honesty. The book brings you onboard and makes you want your innermost thoughts to come to life as you travel along with her adventure.

A real adventurer, go Mary!!! Loved the honest and realist writing style. A book that I would highly recommend.
Mary South writes a realistic and honest depiction of her experiences at sea. I would dare say that most of us don't have the tanacity and courage to do the same. I didn't want to put it down. Even read it aloud to my husband on a road trip. You go girl! Would like to read more of Mary South!

JMG Houston Texas