Critical Praise

"The Starboard Sea is a touching, beautiful and deeply wise novel, a hymn to the bittersweet glories of youth. You will be enthralled."

—Justin Cronin, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage

"Vividly written. Dermont shows real spark in her sensual descriptions of sailing and her realistic depiction of the malevolent dynamics among sophisticated teens."

—Booklist

"With unflinching wit, Amber Dermont examines the harsh vicissitudes of life, and though the worlds she creates are often unsettling places, her sense of detail always makes for a pleasurable read. There is a vibrant lucidity to her language, a daring music…Her characters are simultaneously able to articulate their pain, pass judgment on their own behavior and pardon themselves for their transgressions."

—Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize and Orange Prize winning author of Gilead and Home

"Engrossing...captivating and inspired. Jason is a fiercely likeable first-person narrator and romantic hero. The steady, restrained unmasking of Jason's history...is one of the novel's many achievements. But perhaps its greatest pleasure is the delight its characters take in the sea. Dermont's prose glides across the ocean...the language of sailing is lovely, both simple and elaborate, unexpectedly sexy and inexhaustibly metaphorical. Dermont writes about sailing with such precision and authority it's hard tp believe she's not a salty old sea captain. She's as assured a writer as Jason is a sailor, coasting through the story with agility and grace...Dermont adeptly charts the fine calibrations of teenage love and shame and belonging..."

—The New York Times

"A rich, quietly artful novel that is bound for deep water, with questions of beauty, power and spiritual navigation as its main concerns. The title refers not to the right side of a boat but to the right course through life, and the immense difficulty of finding and following it."

—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"In this affecting debut novel, Amber Dermont reveals herself as a writer of striking and abundant talent, sounding the depths of her narrator through his actions, yes, but even more so through the rhythms of his mind, so that you truly feel as if you are inhabiting his life along with him."

—Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Illumination and The Brief History of the Dead

"With unflinching wit, Amber Dermont examines the harsh vicissitudes of life, and though the worlds she creates are often unsettling places, her sense of detail always makes for a pleasurable read. There is a vibrant lucidity to her language, a daring music…Her characters are simultaneously able to articulate their pain, pass judgment on their own behavior and pardon themselves for their transgressions."

—Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize and Orange Prize winning author of Gilead and Home