A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea [Paperback]

David Vann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2005

If you've ever owned a sailboat or had a friend who did, you know how it begins: with a dream. You dream about the ship, and gradually the dream consumes you. Practical considerations lose all meaning ... until, inevitably, the dream morphs into a nightmare. David Vann is familiar with that nightmare. His begins in Turkey: a thirty-year-old tourist, he stumbles across the steel frame of a ninety-foot sailboat that cries out to be built. From friends, family, and credit cards, he borrows the $150,000 to construct the ship. The Turkish builders take shameless advantage of him, eventually charging him over $500,000. On the edge of financial ruin, Vann starts a chartering business. But, when some new part of the ship isn't falling apart, he encounters freak storms. As his debts escalate, Vann begins to wonder if he is merely repeating his father's dreams and failures at sea—which ended with his father's suicide. At once a page-turning true story of adventure on the open ocean and an archetypal tale of one man's attempt to overcome fate and realize his dream, A Mile Down is an unforgettable story of struggle and redemption by a writer at the top of his form.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A harrowing—and heartbreaking—true story of one ordinary man’s misadventures at sea

"A Mile Down would be a cautionary tale for anyone who dreams of the freedom of the high seas—if only it wasn’t so damn exciting. . . ." —STEWART O'NAN, coauthor with Stephen King of Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season and author of The Night Country

"At once memoir, confession, travel book, and thriller, David Vann’s A Mile Down is so vivid and intense you will dread to see it end. . . . The book is a testimony of passion and courage in deadly storms and scarier calms, of a man wrestling with his ghosts and gifts in the very shadow of paradise." —ROBERT MORGAN, author of Gap Creek

"A Mile Down is pure adrenaline. Vann by all rights should have died at sea, and yet he’s lived to tell about it. But the thrill comes also from other kinds of risk—risk of repeating his father’s suicide, risk of financial disaster, risk of prosecution, risk of losing everything including who he believes himself to be. This story won’t let you go." —MELANIE THERNSTROM, author of The Dead Girl and Halfway Heaven

"A Mile Down is far more than a tale of ruin at sea. It’s also a story of desire and shame, of the struggle to escape our histories and know our dreams. Vann writes that ‘A life can be like a work of art, constantly melted away and reshaped,’ and he shows us this reshaping, this rebirth of hope from despair and ruin, so powerfully I couldn’t put the book down. You have to read this book, even if you care nothing about sailing or the sea. Just read it." —LALITA TADEMY, author of Cane River

"A Mile Down is a riveting and truthful account of a good man’s attempt to stay afloat on treacherous waters. This book reminded me of Robert Stone’s 'Outerbridge Reach,' or John Casey’s 'Spartina,' but in many ways Vann’s odyssey is more unforgettable. The fact that Vann lived to tell it is an achievement in itself." —TOM BARBASH, author of On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, & 9/11: A Story of Loss & Renewal

"A Mile Down is suberbly crafted. As in the great epics, the protagonist faces an unrelenting crush of disasters, bad luck, and ill will, yet picks himself up over and over to carry on. . . . David Vann has created a tale of hubris and endurance that is both exciting and beautifully written." —KEITH SCRIBNER, author of The Goodlife and Miracle Girl

"Riveting, heartbreaking, and redemptive . . . A Mile Down is a memoir as engaging as the most compelling of novels . . . This is an immensely moving and exciting book—it’s as if one of the heroes of A Perfect Storm had lived to write his memoirs." —JULIE HILDEN, author of 3 and The Bad Daughter

"A Mile Down is mandatory reading for anyone who’s ever flirted with thoughts of a life spent at sea." —A. MANETTE ANSAY, author of Vinegar Hill

About the Author

David Vann’s work has been published in The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines and has won numerous awards. He has taught at Stanford and Cornell and currently teaches Travel and Adventure Writing for a consortium of Oxford, Stanford, and Yale. He holds a U.S. Coast Guard 200-ton Master’s License and has sailed more than 40,000 miles offshore.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (May 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560257105
• ISBN-13: 978-1560257103
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Vann's Legend of a Suicide, an international bestseller and winner of the 2010 Prix Medicis in France, the L'Express readers' prize in France, the Grace Paley Prize, and a California Book Award, has been on 29 "Best Books of the Year" lists in the US, UK, Ireland, Spain, France, and Australia, including The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times. Vann was also shortlisted for The Sunday Times Short Story Award and longlisted for the Story Prize. His new novel, Caribou Island, set in his native Alaska, will be out January 18, 2011 from HarperCollins, and he has a nonfiction book about a school shooting coming out Sept 2011 (titled Last Day On Earth). A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford and National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he is currently an Associate Professor at the University of San Francisco. www.davidvann.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars David Vann's "A Mile Down", May 24, 2005

By 

Patricia N. Williamsen (Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea (Paperback)

Why do men go down to the sea in ships? The power of the ocean has long compelled men to go, hearing in the windy sea a siren offering the secrets of fame, sustenance, fortune, romance. Author David Vann went down to the sea to forge a career, to free himself forever from "the endless treadmill of middle-class labor." To accomplish his dream, Vann commissioned a sleek sailing ship in Turkey and sold educational charters to ancient ports in the Mediterranean Sea. He then embarked on a voyage so riddled with misfortune and danger it could only exist in another man's nightmares -- his ship is hopelessly flawed. But when his boat sinks, "A Mile Down" in the Caribbean, David Vann finds the key to a mystery that has haunted him for many years. "A Mile Down" is more than an adventure story; it is a memoir of discovery and reconciliation written to inspire even confirmed landlubbers. If you read only one book this summer, make that one book "A Mile Down."

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Drowning out a shout, July 4, 2005

By 

K. Hug (Henderson, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea (Paperback)

Near the end of A Mile Down, an angry charter agent shouts, "I am ashamed of the name David Vann." By then, the reader has arrived at an understanding of Vann that causes the hateful shout to fall on deaf ears. David Vann's memoir puts the reader at his side for two years as he pursues his dream of owning and operating a 90-foot sailboat. From Vann's words and actions, the reader becomes acquainted with a dreamer and a doer. No one is more critical of Vann than Vann himself. Yet, time after time, friends and associates come to his aid, freely giving of time, talent, and money. It is the cumulative sound of these silent voices that drowns out the shout of the charter agent. David Vann is somebody . . . somebody whose dream can be embraced. His craft (the sailboat) goes a mile down in a freak storm, while his craft (as a writer) allows him to go a mile down to discover enough truth about himself to sail again.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A lot of whining!, February 2, 2008

By 

David (Stillwater, Mongolia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea (Paperback)

I don't know, guys. I read the hype for this book, bought it, and dove in with great expectations. Overall, it is well written but the author's agenda - to blame everyone and anyone but himself for mistake after horrific mistake - overshadowed any merit to the story. It felt a bit like a deposition written in hopes that his former creditors might read it and exonerate him. I found it hard to feel badly for someone who used and abused other peoples' trust and money so that he wouldn't have to get a real job. Poor Mr. Vann!