The Water in Between [Hardcover]

Kevin Patterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 2000

A high-seas adventure story that combines the wry wit and deep reflection of A Walk in the Woods with the action and suspense of A Perfect Storm.

A stint in the army and a broken heart lead Kevin Patterson to the dock of a sailboat brokerage on Vancouver Island, where he stands contemplating the romance of the sea and his heartfelt desire to get away. By the end of the day, he finds himself the neophyte owner of a sailboat called the Sea Mouse. He also has a plan: to sail to Tahiti and back, and burn away his failings in hard miles at sea.

First he recruits a traveling companion, another brokenhearted guy who at least knows how to sail. They set out like the Two Stooges-Seasick and Slapstick. Days without wind are days to kick back on the deck with a beer and a man-versus-nature adventure book that valorizes their journey into an essential quest for manhood. But eventually the voyage begins to take on a sharper edge. On a relentless beat across the South Pacific, they run across one solitary male sailor after another on the lam, not heroes but refugees. Both the literature and the reality of masculine adventure start to pall, and Patterson begins to long for home.

But to get there, he faces the toughest of trials, single-handedly sailing the Sea Mouse across the North Pacific and through a four-day gale, conscious that no one on earth knows where he is or that he might die. The illusion that men are best tested by loneliness and adversity cracks in the force of the wind and the terrifying beat of the water, and The Water In Between becomes a hymn, not to running away but to heading home.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

During the dark days Kevin Patterson spent in the Canadian army on a desolate artillery base, his only solace--besides alcohol--was reading. He began to read travel literature--Redmond O'Hanlon, Eric Newby, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Paul Theroux--and became attracted to the idea of the solitary nomad. Then he read Bruce Chatwin: first In Patagonia, then The Songlines--"and I was done for."

Looking back, I think that after reading Chatwin it became inevitable that I would set out for a blank horizon and an inhospitable environment. But a desire for withdrawal into desolate topography comes from some place other than a writer's evocative suggestion. And is fed by something other than optimism.

A broken heart following a brief but painful love affair drove Patterson to the end of the pier--and onto a 20-year-old, 37-foot ferro-cement sailboat called the Sea Mouse. No, he didn't know how to sail. He'd never been at sea before. But he was convinced it would be easy to learn, and that he needed to be alone at sea. In the end, Patterson set sail with a stranger--another man trying to leave everything behind him, but one who knew how to sail--to journey from British Columbia to Tahiti.

The Water In Between recounts their voyage. At times wryly funny, Patterson's tale is more often tinged with melancholy. The sailors meet other travelers, visit remote locales, and survive both storm and calm. Through it all, the shadowy presence of Bruce Chatwin remains at Patterson's side--and sometimes hangs around his neck like an albatross. Perhaps solitude was not the solution? As a storm raged around him, Patterson "sat there on my bouncing boat with an intimation of disquiet--if even Chatwin couldn't realize his ideal, what was I doing here, emulating him?"

Although landlubbers may be confused by some of the nautical language ("I hoisted a reefed mizzen sail and sheeted in tightly"), the strength and the heart of this book is Patterson's prose. His honest writing makes for smooth reading, but the inclusion of dozens of lengthy quotations from Patterson's favorite authors sometimes leaves the text choppy. Readers may also feel they've been left adrift by the abrupt ending. And if it's adventure you seek, look elsewhere (try The Perfect Storm or Fastnet, Force 10 for that). Those conditions aside, The Water In Between is a beautiful, somewhat haunting book--a thought-provoking meditation on solitude and the call of the wild unknown. --Sunny Delaney

From Publishers Weekly

In the story of a 1984 sailing adventure from Vancouver Island to Tahiti and back, ex-Canadian army doctor Patterson finds himself in the horse latitudes north of the equator, on an idyllic atoll in the South Pacific and in all manner of dull and violent weather. He deftly and modestly chronicles the sea wrack he encounters, how he learned enough to make the final leg of the voyage from Hawaii on his own and how he recovered from a broken heart. That would be accomplishment enough for such a tale, but Patterson attempts to reinvent the genre of travel literature as practiced by Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux. With charming self-knowledge, he sees such writing as missing the ultimate experience of travel: homesickness. Perhaps, Patterson questions, loosening oneself from the habits and possessions of a settled life is not the pinnacle of human experience Chatwin or most memoirists of sea life suggest. Perhaps the purpose of lonesome traveling is a new appreciation of home. After all, how noble is it to be in the wilderness, away from all comforts? "It's not a succession of good and compassionate decisions that leads someone to decide they may not take pleasure again," he writes. It's an original, audacious idea to build into such a story, and Patterson is a good enough writer to construct an engaging read. In the end, the book doesn't create fully satisfying secondary characters nor a resounding conclusion-but those are relatively small criticisms given the insight, authenticity and courage of Patterson's good work. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese; First Edition edition (May 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385498837
• ISBN-13: 978-0385498838
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,834,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Sailing Story- sort of., June 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Water in Between (Hardcover)

In this autobiographical book, Kevin Patterson, medical doctor, unsuccessful army officer, and failed lover, takes us and a series of increasingly reluctant crew members along on his sailing trip from Vancouver to Tahiti and back. By the last leg of the journey, Kevin, unsurprisingly, is sailing alone. This book is not a sailing manual, in fact it becomes apparent that even by the end of his journey Kevin is still unable to sail. It is not adventure writing. It is instead a meditation on travel and travel writers and Kevin himself. And if Patterson's thoughts are sometimes a little banal, his love affairs a little adolescent, his prose not always up to par with the authors he generously quotes, and even if the ending is a little abrupt, then this does not stop the book from being an interesting read. Patterson is witty and clever. However, it it's a funny travel book you want, look to Bill Bryson, for meditations on travel look to Chatwin, for damn good travel writing read Theroux, and if it's sailing you're after then you can't go wrong with Slocum and Montessier. If you've read them all and a few more then try this.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Journey At Sea, June 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Water in Between (Hardcover)

Though I would think twice about joining Kevin Patterson on his journey at sea, I would not hesitate to read this book. Kevin Patterson has a way of taking you along anyway. Through wild weather and days and days in the doldrums, subsisting on noodles and frozen pie, you gain a pretty real sense of life at sea. There are mishaps and no apparent way of bathing, but at the same time you get to visit some rare places: Penrhyn Atoll, Palmyra, Tahiti. You also get to read over Kevin's shoulder and drink brandy long into the night in the dimly lit cabin and discuss writers you otherwise may not have read: Chatwin, Theroux and many other accounts of sea adventure. Then you wake in the morning, a little fuzzy and bleary-eyed only to discover the main sail has torn and wrapped itself around the mast. But wait. You are not at sea at all. You are on the sofa by the fire, reading a great book. He's the one who has to deal with the sail and eat cold curry noodles for breakfast. What a relief. What an incredible book.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Am I a sailor? No. Did I love this book? YES!, May 29, 2000

By 

J St. Andre (Edmonton, Alberta CANADA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Water in Between (Hardcover)

Even those of us who have had little or no sailing experience, will not be able to resist the charm of Kevin Patterson's writing. It is a tale for even those who get weak at the knees at just contemplating the idea of being surrounded by nothing but water, wind, rain and sky, or by being truly alone with the slapping reality of oneself, will not be able to stop turning the pages. He writes as if he is reading to you, and he teaches you that you can make anything happen, if you so desire it, or if you are just plain bored with the routine of life. "The Water in Between" is not simply the tale of a 29 year old man fulfilling some egotistical plight to capture his youth, or his attempt to 'bodly go where few men have gone before', rather it is an honest, and at times a hilariously sarcastic narrative, about a person who decided to shed the skin of self-pity, and go for it. For me, the most enjoyable part of this book was that while the story itself is real, so to is the author!