Sea of Tranquillity

Paul Russell's delicately layered, richly textured novels have won him widespread acclaim as one of the finest contemporary American novelists. Sea of Tranquillity, possibly his most ambitious and rewarding novel, traces a disintegrating nuclear family across two tumultuous decades of American life—from the early sixties to the eighties—and is told in a quartet of voices: astronaut Allen Cloud, his wife, their gay son, Jonathan, and Jonathan's friend/lover. Ranging in time and emotion from the optimism of the first moon shot to the dark landscape of the age of AIDS, Sea of Tranquillity is an extraordinary and compelling novel.

Praise

"Vividly . . . likely to leave indelible tracks on the surface of your mind."—Out

"This book of martyrs and lovers of one family lost in space and an image of America in the age of astronauts is a real find of the season."—Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio

"Traces the disintegration of a picture-perfect American family across two momentous decades of time and immense distances of space, literal and emotion . . . telling is in frank, confessional terms about the many ways to love and lose in modern America."—The Boston Globe

"Spellbinding . . . Russell has a gift for breathing life into his characters from the moment you are introduced to them."—In the Life

"Paul Russell quickly sets out to deconstruct the American dream. The nucleus of Sea of Tranquillity, however, is a wealth of detail, imaginative construct, and metaphorical landscape."—Lambda Book Report

About the Author(s)

Paul Russell

Paul Russell is the author of five novels— including The Coming Storm—as well as The Gay 100, a work of non-fiction. The Coming Storm was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award as well as the winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award. He is a professor at Vassar College and lives in upstate New York.