The Ocean Above Me: A Novel

Written by Kevin Sites

Narrated by Graham Halstead

Longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize

""An intense and powerful novel about losing one’s way and then finding it again in the unlikeliest of places. I found it moving, thought-provoking and gripping in equal measure."" -- Ian McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of The North Water

Trapped undersea in a capsized shrimping trawler, a damaged former war correspondent is forced to confront a deadly secret from his past as he struggles to survive in this gripping novel of trauma, loss, love, and redemption from award-winning journalist and author of The Things They Cannot Say Kevin Sites.

Former war correspondent Lukas Landon is alone, trapped under 150-feet of water in an overturned shrimp trawler at the bottom of the ocean. The only thing keeping him alive is an air bubble in the ship’s bow. But the water level is rising, and time is running out. Landon doesn’t know if he will survive . . . or if he even deserves to.

After years of covering bloody battles in Afghanistan and Iraq, Landon’s once promising life took a steep nosedive. But he may have found a path to redemption: a series of in-depth stories on the Philomena, the rarest of South Carolina shrimp boats skippered by decorated former army sergeant Clarita Esteban.

A Black woman struggling to survive in a white man’s world, Clarita has assembled a crew of misfits as deeply wounded as herself; a Cuban first mate who came to America during the Mariel boatlift and his troubled younger cousin; a quiet Haitian cook with a secret black book; a deckhand, the only member of the ship’s former crew willing to work for a Black female skipper; and Clarita’s daughter, who lost a college basketball scholarship to an injury.

As Landon slowly earns the disparate crew’s trust, uncovering their pasts—and how each landed aboard this rusty bucket of bolts with its own shaded history—he keeps his own story and the events that unmoored the foundation of his life a secret. But when catastrophe strikes—leaving him twenty-fathoms deep in exquisite isolation—Landon has no one to question but himself. Will he finally come clean? And if he does, will he make it out alive from this 110-ton steel tomb under the sea to finally tell the truth to those who need to hear it?

A thrilling fight for survival and a poignant story of loss and redemption, The Ocean Above Me is a literary masterpiece that explores the effects of trauma, the pain of forgiveness, and the light of love that burns in the darkest depths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9780063278318

Kevin Sites

Kevin Sites is an award-winning journalist and author. He has worked as a reporter for more than thirty years, half of that covering war and disaster for ABC, NBC, CNN, Yahoo News, and Vice News. He was a 2010 Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and a 2012 Dart Fellow in Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. For a decade he lived and taught in Hong Kong as an associate professor of practice in journalism at the University of Hong Kong. He’s the author of three books on war, In the Hot Zone, The Things They Cannot Say, and Swimming with Warlords. The Ocean Above Me is his first novel. He lives in Oregon.

Reviews for The Ocean Above Me

[Yvette Bonett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Never read anything like this before! Totally original story which is based on the main character's past and present journey, with the most unlikely characters along the way! and the ultimate redemption which will leave you breathless!... was deciding between 4 and 5, due to the fact that the story made me cry and I was hoping it wouldn't! But with the way the story unfolds, depicting details and actions with so much meaning ....and also, exceptionally well written! Although I wouldnt put it with my usual category of favorites, it definetly deserves a 5!