The Family Ship: A Novel

by Sonja Yoerg

From the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of True Places comes a disarming and emotional novel about a family in distress and a daughter’s mission to keep it from going under.

Chesapeake Bay, 1980. Eighteen-year-old Verity Vergennes is the captain of the USS Nepenthe, and her seven younger siblings are her crew. The ship—an oyster boat transformed into a make-believe destroyer—is the heart of the Vergennes family, a place both to play and to learn responsibility. But Verity’s had it with being tied to the ship and secretly applies to a distant college. If only her parents could bear to let her go.

Maeve and Arthur Vergennes already suffered one loss when, five years earlier, their eldest son, Jude, stormed out and never returned. Now Maeve is pregnant again and something’s amiss. Verity yearns to follow her dreams, but how can she jump ship now? The problem, and perhaps the answer, lies with Jude.

When disaster strikes and the family unravels, Verity must rally her sibling crew to keep the Nepenthe and all it symbolizes afloat. Sailing away from home, she discovers, is never easy—not if you ever hope to find your way back.

• ISBN10: 1542004691
• ISBN13: 9781542004695
• Publish Date: 23 February 2021
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Amazon Publishing
• Imprint: Lake Union Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 412
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Blame And Forgiveness. Let's face it, the central conceit of this tale - a mostly abandoned boat left on a property that a family purchases that the parents and older kids then use as a mechanism to control the younger kids - is a bit... strange. And I note this as the son of two people who both had six or more siblings each - so while I only have two brothers myself, large family dynamics are not completely foreign to me. This noted, once your brain accepts the central conceit here, the actual story is truly a very solid one of finding oneself, struggling with roles that are not always chosen and not always permanent - both by choice and by situation, and, ultimately, self-recrimination of past wrongs and the need to forgive both yourself and others. The back half *really* picks up, and actually features a scene reminecent of one particular story of my own family history that I was told for years - in this case, a particular confrontation at a particularly ... inopportune... time. (Doing my best to note that this was a phenomenal scene without giving much away, since it *does* happen in the climax of the tale.)

Ultimately, those who have only known smaller families - where you and your entire family you've ever known have had the stereotypical-ish 2-3 kids or less - may struggle a bit with keeping up with the fairly large family and the dynamics therein. But work with it, because most everyone gets their chance to be a mostly-realized age-appropriate actual person... even as most of the actual action really does focus on the more senior people. (In other words, even the toddlers get a chance to be toddlers, but the teens and adults ultimately drive the story.)

Truly a great work, and a Toby Keith level master class in "I can spin off a story about anything". (Look up the story of TK's "Red Solo Cup" to understand that reference. ;) )

Very much recommended.