Evocative and thought provoking, the story of a young man who finds and sells shrimps for a living. It's hard, physical work, and he seems to be caught in a net just like the shrimps he catches. Held back by his circumstances, an unexpected and unlikely friendship is struck between the young man and a Hollywood director which opens his eyes to opportunities he had never considered.

A beautiful and poetic read.

Benjamin Wood grew up in Southport, a coastal Merseyside town on the shores of the Ribble estuary. He was inspired to write Seascraper after seeing an abandoned shed on wheels - a shrimper’s rig - on the beach.

Wood’s sixth novel tells the tale of Thomas Flett. He’s barely twenty but his joints already creak from the physical graft of his job as a shanker, scraping the sea flats of Longferry for shrimp. It’s a dying trade by the sixties and Thomas is all too aware that the industry is on its last legs and his horse and cart are no match for the mechanical trawlers that will soon rob him of a living.

But Thomas has dreams secreted away in the stable beneath a saddle cloth, for he longs to be a folk musician. He hides his guitar from his ma, knowing she’ll frown on this frippery. So he waits for her to go out before pulling out his guitar and practising by the fireside, or heads up the road to strum in front of a small crowd at the Fisher’s Rest.

Into this scene glides a silver Humber that Thomas discovers on his return from the ebbing tide. Kneeling at their hearth, stoking the fire as bold as brass is a stranger. Edgar Acheson is, he says, a Hollywood movie maker and he wants Thomas to take him out on to the beach so he can take some stills for a proposed screenplay based on a book called The Outermost.

Thomas eventually agrees, won over by this unexpected injection of excitement and glamour. The two embark on an unlikely friendship and Thomas starts to treat the more ebullient Edgar as his confidante.

This is an evocative novel about the hopes and dreams we harbour. The atmosphere building is expertly done. You can almost taste the mizzle on your tongue and feel the wet sand seep between your toes. It’s slow and suspenseful but there is one section mid-way through that veers toward magical realism. It was here that the novel truly reeled me in. I can’t say much more for fear of spoilers. I loved this story. Its quiet beauty slowly won me over and the folk song Seascraper recording at the end only sealed the deal.

Huge thanks to @vikingbooksuk and @netgalley for the eArc for this review.

A beautiful, poignant read- highly recommended!

I read an amazing review of this - the new novel from highly acclaimed author Benjamin Wood- and I must admit I had not heard of him before despite the fact that this is his fifth novel and that he has already been shortlisted for various awards.

The literary editor of The Times described him as 'one of the finest British novelists of his generation' and Hilary Mantel also called him a huge talent. And the new novel is 176 pages long- what did I have to lose?!

I am so glad I did read this- a real gem, and one of those incredible novels that manages to make a big impression in so few pages. It made me think of the reading experience I had reading Claire Keegan and Donal Ryan- not only because of the power conveyed in so few words and pages, but also the lyricism and beauty of the language and the strong ambience and sense of place so often found in Irish literary writers.

This is a novel set in the north of England, on a bleak coast where drizzle, damp and fog are pretty much a permanent fixture, and where young man Thomas Flett rides out into the sea every day with his horse and cart to catch shrimp and make a meagre living as his grandfather did before him. That is until Hollywood director Edgar Acheson comes into town and into Thomas' life, looking to make a movie in the town, and brings with him a whole new perspective.

This is such a beautiful, poignant novel about a young man with dreams, held back by duty, circumstance, poverty and the past, seeing the possibilities of the world beyond the life he leads when a stranger comes into his small town and I was transported.

One scene where Thomas and Edgar make their way across the sands towards the sea, dodging sinkholes and unable to see through the thick fog is one of the most tense scenes I have read for some time, and ultimately I found this a very uplifting book. Benjamin Wood really is a brilliant writer and I look forward to finding his previous novels!

Thanks so much @vikingbooksuk and @netgalley for letting me read an early digital copy. Highly recommended.

A fairly short novel set I would think around about 1960 .Thomas Fleet scrapes a living by collecting shrimps from the seas edge , lives with his mother and is an aspiring folk singer. Into his life enters an enigmatic American with lofty plans and a need for his services. Toms life takes on bigger horizons after his short acquaintance with the man and he dreams of a life away from the poverty of his existence. Although I found this to be a very readable story In the end it disappointed a bit and left a feeling of unfinished business. The author is a wordsmith of some talent but in this instance something seemed to be lacking.

Benjamin Wood’s Seascraper is a beautifully wrought, melancholy novella that captures two days in the life of a young man caught between his dreams and his reality. Aspiring to a life of folk music and artistic expression, he instead spends his days scraping shrimp from a cold, grey northern beach, the only way to support himself and his mother. Wood’s writing is quietly powerful, evoking the heavy stillness of a small life.

When a charismatic film director appears, dripping with Hollywood ambition, the monotony cracks, revealing fleeting glimpses of a wider world. The novella lingers on the bittersweet beauty of small dreams, with an intimate portrait of longing, stasis, and possibility.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A poignant, atmospheric tale about a young man who carries on working in his grandfather's role as a 'seascraper'. This is a word he made up to describe what the job entails, that is, scraping the shallow waters for shrimp.

It is lonely work, involving forever being wet and cold, rising early and never smelling good. Minor ailments affect him as a result of his job. But it is something he feels obliged to do so that he can look after his mother and honour his late grandfather who taught him the art of collecting shrimp and helped to raise him. He does have dreams of creating music and playing the guitar, plus he would really like to ask his friend's sister out on a date. But he lacks self confidence to break out so continues to perform his duties.

This is a finely detailed story, especially depicting the landscape and seascraping itself, based on a moody beach in the north west of England, in a place called Longferry. I suspect this is a fictitious place, but is reminiscent of the beaches just past Liverpool where the sea is a long way from the land, and the young man indicates that he went on a bus to Liverpool. The music of the time includes Roy Orbison, so the book is set around the 1950s or 1960s. I enjoyed the nice relationship he has with his horse, showing how he cares for its well-being despite not naming the beast.

A beautifully told story that I enjoyed reading, despite the gloominess and dreary life of the man and his mother. With some profound moments, this is a powerful book that somehow sparkles.

Seascraper is a quietly stunning novella that showcases Benjamin Wood at the height of his powers. Drawing from the thoughtful perspectives of both the Financial Times and The Observer, it’s clear this is a work of exceptional craft and emotional insight.

Set over the course of a fog-shrouded spring day in a 1960s North Sea town, the novel follows Thomas Flett, a young shrimp dredger with faint aspirations and a life defined by duty, habit, and the limitations of place. When a mysterious American filmmaker appears, casting an unexpected light on Thomas’s dormant desires, the world he knows is subtly but irrevocably unsettled.

The Financial Times rightly notes that Wood’s writing is “pared-back yet sensually potent.” He renders the landscape—both physical and emotional—with care and precision, creating an atmosphere steeped in salt air, sea mist, and quiet dread. What begins as a naturalistic character study takes on something mythic and more allegorical as it unfolds, without ever losing its human core.

As The Observer points out, Seascraper may be Wood’s most fully formed work to date. There is remarkable restraint in his storytelling; much of the emotional weight lies beneath the surface, in what’s unsaid or merely glimpsed. The novel explores how we are shaped not just by our own choices, but by those of others: “There’s a door already opened for you, so you walk through that door and you wonder why you wound up on the fire escape.”

This is a novella of mood and momentum, steeped in longing and ambivalence, and written in prose that lingers long after the final page. A worthy addition to the 2025 Booker longlist, and I very much hope to see it shortlisted.

When you’re young, you think life is a string of choices. It’s either you choose this door or the other door or jump through the window. You don’t realize that most of what will happen to you is because of other people’s choices. There’s a door already opened for you, so you walk through that door and you wonder why you wound up on the fire escape”

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

Goodness, this is the most incredibly vivid and atmospheric novella I’ve ever read. Benjamin Wood is a name I’ve not heard of before, but I will certainly seek out his other work.

Seascraper is a unique story centred upon Thomas Flett, a traditional sea shanker, whom lives a physically hard life scraping the sea floor for shrimp, a job and way of life, inherited from his grandpa. The portrayal of Thomas’ simple yet gruelling life over the course of just 2 days, is an utterly absorbing mix of acute realism juxtaposed with an air of mysticism and suffocating sense of place, which had me holding my breath in anticipation.

Longferry, the coastal town where it is set, is an imaginary northern town, sometime in the undefined 1960s, but it’s portrayed so acutely I felt I the sense of place within my bones. The claustrophobic foggy scene on the beach - well, I’m not going to reveal the specifics - but oh my goodness, that was one exceptionally taut cinematic description.

My one criticism is that it felt very much incomplete, and far too short. So much more could have been fleshed out to achieve more satisfaction, and for this reason I can only give it 4 stars instead of the 5 that the writing deserves.

Big thanks to NetGalley for the ARC which has led me to discover the work of Benjamin Wood.

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp; spending the rest of the day selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.

This is a wonderfully written novel, but it's dark and, at times, quite claustrophobic. I just found it painfully slow to get anywhere.

Beautifully intense and perfectly atmospheric, this was such a gorgeously written book. For such a short book, it really packed in a lot of emotion and mood, and I couldn't have loved it any more.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

From the start this was full of atmosphere. It felt as if I was living in the same seaside home as Thomas. An extremely haunting story which left my mood in contemplation once it finished.

What a sad and lonely life both Thomas and his mother lived.. towards the end of the book it seemed as if Thomas was progressing out of his mundane life but then the story came to an abrupt end.

Thank you to Penguin General UK - Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Penguin Life, Penguin Business | Viking, the author and NetGalley for a DRC in return for an honest review

I read Seascraper in both Kindle and audiobook formats. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for me. I found it very slow to get going, and I struggled to stay engaged with the story. That said, I appreciated that the author, Benjamin Wood, narrated the audiobook himself—he has a good voice and delivered it well. While the premise intrigued me, the pacing just didn’t work in my favour.

#Seascraper #NetGalley

I worried about Thomas from page 1 and am still worrying about him. Beautifully imagined and intensely atmospheric.

20 year old Thomas is a ‘shanker‘ - he collects shrimps in an unnamed beach town, in mid-20th Century Britain, still using a horse and cart. One day a charismatic American arrives, offering money and requesting help that only Thomas can offer.

Will he be able to break away from his lonely drudgery or is it all too good to be true?

This is the kind of 'quiet' book I seem to be loving at the moment, and the cover is just gorgeous!

When life is really busy, I love nothing more than escaping with a slow and unfurling, atmospheric novel. And that’s exactly what Seascraper is. Set in a coastal North East England town, Wood engulfs us in the quietude and simplicity of Thomas Flett’s life as a shanker in the 1960s. I loved the perfectly wrought language that Wood chooses here: his writing is rich, calm and simple at the same time, suffusing the story with a curious eeriness and that unsettling feeling in your stomach that comes with any coming-of-age story. I highlighted endless quotes and many of my book notes remark how human and compelling Thomas’ interactions are with filmmaker Edgar Atcheson, who acts as our stark antagonist. What occurs over a few days in this book feel like they’ll stay with me for a long time. This won’t be for those that want action and a solid ending.

Well-written, evocative and atmospheric - read in one sitting. I also logged on to listen to the song (thanks to the author for the link, and for sharing). Also, thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

A well-written novella about a shanker/shrimper in a small fictional town in 1960s or so.
His outlook on life changes as a filmmaker visits them. Will his life change as well?
Excellent atmosphere creation.
3.5 stars.

Seascraper was beautifully written, slow and unfurling.
Thomas Flett is hanging onto an old way of life as a shrimper in the northwest of England. His days are unhurried, dictated by the tide, filled with daydreams of playing guitar and romancing Joan Wyeth. An unexpected encounter with a Hollywood film producer opens him up to the possibility of a new life, but things are not what they seem.
This was a relatively short novel and a slow burner, but hugely atmospheric. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

This was an interesting book, a study of a young man trapped in his life as a shrimper on the NE coast, living with his mother who's only 15 years older.. It's a quiet, meditative book/ novella, but by the end I felt oddly disappointed in that I didn't feel I ever really got to know Thomas or Edgar and I found the dream sequence quite jarring and a well used trope.
Thank you to netgalley and Penguin Books for an advance copy of this book.
2.5 rounded up to 3

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

3.5 rounded up.

When I started this book, my heart sank a little. I thought I had, once again, chosen one of these melancholy books set in the recent past in small town Ireland about people struggling and longing to be free.

Well, first of all, it is not set in Ireland but in the Northwest of England and secondly although there is some melancholy to start with it livens up hugely just after half way when Edgar and Thomas go out at night into the sea. The next few pages are quite tense and gripping and I loved the scenes set in the Fogbell tavern. Thomas is a nice character and I wanted things to go well for him.

There is quite the twist at the end which I certainly did not foresee and it all ends, for a change, on an optimistic note.