The Sea & Us

From the Stella shortlisted author of Poum and Alexandre, this is a heartwarming novel about longing, absence and the people we unexpectedly come to love.

After many years spent living in Seoul, a young man called Harold drifts back to Australia and rents a room above a fsh and chip shop called The Sea & Us. Who he meets and what he experiences there propels him to question his own yearnings and failings, and to fght for meaning and a sense of place that can only be reached by facing what is lost.

By turns electric, tender, and hopeful, The Sea & Us is a gem of literary imagination. Catherine de Saint Phalle brilliantly captures disparate characters and their common human desire for community and connection. Long after the last page closes, 'we can hear the bell tinkle. Someone wants some fsh and chips.'

Catherine de Saint Phalle is the author of five novels published by Actes Sud and Buchet Chastel in Paris. Her novel On Brunswick Ground and her memoir Poum & Alexandre, for which she was shortlisted for the prestigious Stella Prize in 2017, are published by Transit Lounge. Australia has been her home since 2003 " some people find it later than others. In their migratory flight, dwarf geese don't return to where they were born, but where they learnt how to fly.

The Sea & Us
Transit Lounge Publishing
Author: Catherine de Saint Phalle
ISBN: 9781925760415
RRP: $29.99

Interview with Catherine de Saint Phalle

Question: What inspired you to write The Sea & US?

Catherine de Saint Phalle: I don't really know. All I was conscious of was a man alone in a rented room on Lygon Street. I had no leads about him, except that he was there. He was not lonely; he was more marooned. His feeling of not being part of anything, of looking at his life from a quiet inner distance is what got me interested at first - this knowing and not-knowing… yet having a sharp sense of his presence. Then I discovered he was called Harold and I was off… it's as if he had been there all my life, just beneath my skin.


Question: What was the best part about creating the character of Harold?

Catherine de Saint Phalle: Writing about a man, from a male perspective. I had never done that before. It was like space travel – imagining what a man felt and quietly starting to feel it too. I liked him, I worried about him. I cared. I wanted to be sure he would be ok, and I never was sure if he would be.


Question: What message do you hope readers take from The Sea & US?

Catherine de Saint Phalle: I'm not much into messages. The story escaped me completely. It had its own intention and its own goal. I suppose I'd just like readers to see Harold as I do, to understand him and to be helped by him as I was. Rather than a message, a feeling - that of the deeper feminine that unites rather than divides...


Question: How much of your inspiration comes from real life and real people?

Catherine de Saint Phalle: Ben, Harold's friend, and a minor character are not invented at all, all the others, including Harold are imaginary. Ben is the exact description of someone I know. This person is like Ben. He loves his skateboard and has absolutely no agenda.


Question: What's next, for you?

Catherine de Saint Phalle: I wanted to write a book about my grandmother who died burnt alive during the German Occupation of France, which I started a while ago. But Harold would just not leave. He's in trouble again. I really have to sort him out.


Interview by Brooke Hunter

The Sea & Us 
Transit Lounge Publishing
Author: Catherine de Saint Phalle

ISBN: 9781925760415
RRP: $29.99