"...engrossing...captivating and inspired. Jason is a fiercely likeable first-person narrator and romantic hero. The steady, restrained unmasking of Jason's history...is one of the novel's many achievements. But perhaps its greatest pleasure is the delight its characters take in the sea. Dermont's prose glides across the ocean...the language of sailing is lovely, both simple and elaborate, unexpectedly sexy and inexhaustibly metaphorical. Dermont writes about sailing with such precision and authority it's hard tp believe she's not a salty old sea captain. She's as assured a writer as Jason is a sailor, coasting through the story with agility and grace...Dermont adeptly charts the fine calibrations of teenage love and shame and belonging..." -- The New York Times
"With unflinching wit, Amber Dermont examines the harsh vicissitudes of life, and though the worlds she creates are often unsettling places, her sense of detail always makes for a pleasurable read. There is a vibrant lucidity to her language, a daring music…Her characters are simultaneously able to articulate their pain, pass judgment on their own behavior and pardon themselves for their transgressions.” —MARILYNNE ROBINSON, Pulitzer Prize and Orange Prize winning author of Gilead and Home
“The Starboard Sea is a touching, beautiful and deeply wise novel, a hymn to the bittersweet glories of youth. You will be enthralled.” —JUSTIN CRONIN, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage
“In this affecting debut novel, Amber Dermont reveals herself as a writer of striking and abundant talent, sounding the depths of her narrator through his actions, yes, but even more so through the rhythms of his mind, so that you truly feel as if you are inhabiting his life along with him.” —KEVIN BROCKMEIER, author of The Illumination and The Brief History of the Dead
“Amber Dermont’s beautiful first novel explores just what it should: the dangers and joys of emergence into adulthood. Dermont has an extraordinarily observant eye and an elegant voice, and she illuminates particular aspects of her world—sailing, gender, class— with intelligence and compassion. Brava for this impressive debut.” —ROXANA ROBINSON, author of Cost and Sweetwater
“Amber Dermont has conjured up a preppy hall of mirrors, filled with hauntingly complex characters, grand houses and borrowed art, privilege and paybacks, and friendship touched with malice. The Starboard Sea blends propulsive mystery, lost love, and mournful coming of age into something layered, wise, and completely riveting.” —MICHELLE WILDGEN, author of But Not For Long and You’re Not You
"The Starboard Sea is a beautifully layered novel with an authenticity that takes the reader beyond the clichés of rich preppies and exposes a world that is vivid, compelling, and heart wrenching. With it, Amber Dermont establishes herself as an exciting new American talent.” —MARK JUDE POIRIER, author of The Worst Years of Your Life and Goats
“In a series of seemingly effortless strokes, Amber Dermont's Starboard Sea has brought to life one of America's great literary outcasts. Set adrift in a storm of his own making, Dermont's Jason Prosper takes us on a journey into the darker depths of our human capabilities. Damaged and dangerous, by turns as despicable as he is lovable, Prosper's voyage is a treasure from a writer of dazzling gifts.” —HOLIDAY REINHORN, author of Big Cats
"Amber Dermont illuminates the bizarre and insular world of boarding schools in her debut novel The Starboard Sea, and her young narrator, Jason Prosper, is captivating. His is a unique voice, searching and full of heart. The Starboard Sea is sharp, funny, smart, and vastly entertaining.” —VICTORIA PATTERSON, author of Drift (Story Prize Finalist) and This Vacant Paradise
“The Starboard Sea is a touching, beautiful, and deeply wise novel, a hymn to the bittersweet glories of youth. You will be enthralled.” —JUSTIN CRONIN, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage
"Vividly written. Dermont shows real spark in her sensual descriptions of sailing and her realistic depiction of the malevolent dynamics among sophisticated teens...." —BOOKLIST
