- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Da Capo Press; illustrated edition edition (May 10 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1560257105
- ISBN-13: 978-1560257103
- Product Dimensions: 20.7 x 14.4 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #508,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
If you've ever owned a sailboat or had a friend who did, you know how it begins: with a dream. You dream about the ship, and gradually the dream consumes you. Practical considerations lose all meaning ... until, inevitably, the dream morphs into a nightmare. David Vann is familiar with that nightmare. His begins in Turkey: a thirty-year-old tourist, he stumbles across the steel frame of a ninety-foot sailboat that cries out to be built. From friends, family, and credit cards, he borrows the $150,000 to construct the ship. The Turkish builders take shameless advantage of him, eventually charging him over $500,000. On the edge of financial ruin, Vann starts a chartering business. But, when some new part of the ship isn't falling apart, he encounters freak storms. As his debts escalate, Vann begins to wonder if he is merely repeating his father's dreams and failures at sea—which ended with his father's suicide. At once a page-turning true story of adventure on the open ocean and an archetypal tale of one man's attempt to overcome fate and realize his dream, A Mile Down is an unforgettable story of struggle and redemption by a writer at the top of his form.
About the Author
David Vann's short stories have been published in the Atlantic and various national literary quarterlies and have won numerous contests and awards. He was a Jones Lecturer and Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford and earned his MFA from Cornell. He also holds a US Coast Guard 200-ton Master's License and has sailed more than 40 thousand miles offshore.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
David Vann's "A Mile Down", May 24 2005
By Patricia N. Williamsen - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Mile Down: The True Story Of a Disastrous Career At Sea (Paperback)
Why do men go down to the sea in ships? The power of the ocean has long compelled men to go, hearing in the windy sea a siren offering the secrets of fame, sustenance, fortune, romance. Author David Vann went down to the sea to forge a career, to free himself forever from "the endless treadmill of middle-class labor." To accomplish his dream, Vann commissioned a sleek sailing ship in Turkey and sold educational charters to ancient ports in the Mediterranean Sea. He then embarked on a voyage so riddled with misfortune and danger it could only exist in another man's nightmares -- his ship is hopelessly flawed. But when his boat sinks, "A Mile Down" in the Caribbean, David Vann finds the key to a mystery that has haunted him for many years. "A Mile Down" is more than an adventure story; it is a memoir of discovery and reconciliation written to inspire even confirmed landlubbers. If you read only one book this summer, make that one book "A Mile Down."
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Drowning out a shout, July 4 2005
By K. Hug - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Mile Down: The True Story Of a Disastrous Career At Sea (Paperback)
Near the end of A Mile Down, an angry charter agent shouts, "I am ashamed of the name David Vann." By then, the reader has arrived at an understanding of Vann that causes the hateful shout to fall on deaf ears. David Vann's memoir puts the reader at his side for two years as he pursues his dream of owning and operating a 90-foot sailboat. From Vann's words and actions, the reader becomes acquainted with a dreamer and a doer. No one is more critical of Vann than Vann himself. Yet, time after time, friends and associates come to his aid, freely giving of time, talent, and money. It is the cumulative sound of these silent voices that drowns out the shout of the charter agent. David Vann is somebody . . . somebody whose dream can be embraced. His craft (the sailboat) goes a mile down in a freak storm, while his craft (as a writer) allows him to go a mile down to discover enough truth about himself to sail again.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A lot of whining!, Feb 2 2008
By David - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Mile Down: The True Story Of a Disastrous Career At Sea (Paperback)
I don't know, guys. I read the hype for this book, bought it, and dove in with great expectations. Overall, it is well written but the author's agenda - to blame everyone and anyone but himself for mistake after horrific mistake - overshadowed any merit to the story. It felt a bit like a deposition written in hopes that his former creditors might read it and exonerate him. I found it hard to feel badly for someone who used and abused other peoples' trust and money so that he wouldn't have to get a real job. Poor Mr. Vann!
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