After a ferocious early springtime storm, young Norwegian sailor Hans
Lyngstrand is shipwrecked in the English Channel near the coastal Kent
town of Dengate; he is one of few survivors. Soon after, aspiring
journalist Martin Bridges takes a job as the reporter at the local
newspaper. A loner by nature, he's a curiosity to the nosy townspeople,
the gregarious editor of the paper, and his melodramatic landlady, whose
own private life is fraught by the unexplained absence of her son and
suspicious disappearance of her husband.But when Hans moves into the
"Mercy Room" of Martin's boardinghouse to convalesce and Martin's editor
assigns him the task of interviewing the young sailor, it upends his
otherwise uneventful world. Hans tells him of his travels at sea, how he
survived the shipwreck-and of his encounter with a ferocious sailor
vowing to seek revenge, who Hans believes may still be alive. So begins a
complex friendship between the two young men that will cause Martin to
reexamine his past and future ambitions and his relationships with
everyone around him. In The Stranger from the Sea, the backstories Paul
Binding creates for Ibsen's classic Lady from the Sea characters unfold
in tandem with the secret romances, rivalries, and heartaches of a
seemingly unremarkable town. The result is a transporting, lyrical, and
quietly captivating period piece that will mesmerize readers from its
opening pages.