Sea State

A Recommended Read from: Vogue * USA Today * The Los Angeles Times * Publishers Weekly * The Week * Alma * Lit Hub

A stunning and brutally honest memoir that shines a light on what happens when female desireconflicts with a culture of masculinity in crisis

In her midthirties and newly free from a terrible relationship, Tabitha Lasley quit her job at a London magazine, packed her bags, and poured her savings into a six-month lease on an apartment in Aberdeen, Scotland. She decided to make good on a long-deferred idea for a book about oil rigs and the men who work on them. Why oil rigs? She wanted to see what men were like with no women around.

In Aberdeen, Tabitha became deeply entrenched in the world of roughnecks, a teeming subculture rich with brawls, hard labor, and competition. The longer she stayed, the more she found her presence had a destabilizing effect on the menand her.

Sea Stateis on the one hand a portrait of an overlooked industry: offshore is a way of life for generations of primarily working-class men and also a potent metaphor for those parts of life we keep at bayclass, masculinity, the transactions of desire, and the awful slipperiness of a ladder that could, if we tried hard enough, lead us to security.

Sea Stateis on the other hand the story of a journalist whose professional distance from her subject becomes perilously thin. In Aberdeen, Tabitha gets high and dances with abandon, reliving her youth, when the music was good and the boys were bad. Twenty years on, there is Caden: a married rig worker who spends three weeks on and three weeks off. Alone and in an increasingly precarious state, Tabitha dives into their growing attraction. The relationship, reckless and explosive, will lay them both bare.

Unflinching Memoir: A raw, confessional look at a journalist who crosses the line, losing her professional distance as she becomes part of the story she went to report.Masculinity in Crisis: An immersive portrait of the lives of offshore oil workersthe brawls, the hard labor, and the complex subculture of men living without women.A Reckless Affair: When the author meets Caden, a married rig worker, she dives into an explosive and all-consuming relationship that threatens to undo them both.Social Commentary: A sharp exploration of class, desire, and the precarious lives of working-class men in an overlooked and dangerous industry.

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