Amber Dermont (contributor to Ann Patchett's The Best American Short Stories 2006) makes her novel-length debut with The Starboard Sea, a vividly emotional imagining of a troubled teenage boy confronting the corruption of his privileged world in the months surrounding the stock market crash of 1987.
Jason Prosper and his friend Cal were once the pride of exclusive Kensington Prep, with their good looks, stellar competitive sailing record and seemingly unbreakable bond, but a secret of their life together resulted in Cal's suicide and Jason's expulsion. When his womanizing father generously endows an East Coast boarding school for rich kids with bad records in order to secure Jason's acceptance for his senior year, Jason finds himself adrift, his grief over Cal leaving him unable to return to sailing or make sense of life. When he becomes close to a beautiful, free-spirited girl named Aidan, Jason thinks his prayers have been answered, even though their budding relationship brings up familiar confusion about his sexuality. However, following a hurricane's landfall at school, events unfold that drag Jason into the dark side of prep school hazing and leave him wondering if Aidan might share Cal's suicidal tendencies.
While Dermont ties an impressive knot of themes including grief, hazing, sexuality, racism and the effects of privilege and lack of parental involvement, the voice of her dynamic main character steals the show and exhibit’s Dermont's beautiful prose. She weds the zeitgeist of the materialistic decade with the pain and beauty of adolescence into a satisfying blend of wit, scandal and reflection. The Starboard Sea will satisfy readers' cravings for substantive and enjoyable fiction. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads