The Sea On Fire

Howard Cunnell

The Sea On Fire

When they were young men, Kim and his best friend, the charismatic waterman Garland Rain, travelled all year round, working as dive guides. Now Kim is married and a father, but when Garland asks for his help on a three-week trip to the spectacular reefs of the southern Red Sea, it sounds like the perfect job. It’s a chance for Kim to provide for his wife, Araba, and their three daughters, while doing what he loves most.

The two divers soon find out that their dive boat, the Shang-Tu, is owned by Teddy King, a gargantuan and threatening figure who lives a life of drugs and violence. While Garland seeks to contain Teddy’s worst excesses, and tries to ensure that the guests are diving safely, Kim finds himself increasingly drawn to the dark side of the boat’s temptations. As the partying continues, and threatens to consume Kim and overwhelm Garland, one of the other divers is lost at sea in what seems to be an accident.

Brilliantly suspenseful, The Sea on Fire is a story about a man torn between responsibilities to his family and the freedom of the open water.

Rosanna Boscawen
 

This year we published Suzette Field's A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature. Parties are at the heart of literature, they're where the drama happens; this book is a compendium of who was there, what they wore, what was eaten and who said what to whom. In tribute to all the festivities in the book, we've asked our authors to tell us a little about their best parties, real and fictional. 

Rosanna Boscawen
 

Howard Cunnell is a former professional scuba diving instructor and the author of The Sea on Fire. He also edited Jack Kerouac’s On the Road: The Original Scroll. Unsurprisingly, Kerouac crops up a lot in his life in books below.

Join Jon Ronson, Stuart Evers, Anna Raverat and Howard Cunnell in a celebration of Picador's 40 years of publishing the very best in contemporary fiction, poetry and non-fiction from around the globe.