The ordinary seaman
By: Francisco Goldman.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 387
Subjects: Nicaraguans -- New York (State) -- Fiction; Immigrants -- Fiction; Sailors -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
Description: The ordinary seaman is Esteban, a nineteen-year-old veteran of the war in Nicaragua who has come to America with fourteen other men to form the crew of the boat Urus. Docked on a desolate Brooklyn pier, the Urus turns out to be a wreck, the men - without the ability to return to their homes - become its prisoners, and the city of New York is transformed into a mysterious and alluring world they cannot penetrate.

Esteban, haunted by his dead lover from the war, eventually gathers the courage to escape from the ship and embarks on a quest for a new life and love in the city. The Ordinary Seaman is both a richly human story of abandonment, loss, betrayal, and the power of love and a modern fable about America's hidden immigrant culture.