The Stranger from the Sea: A Novel

A shipwrecked sailor disturbs the life of a journalist in a late nineteenth-century English seaside town in this reimagining of Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea.

After a ferocious storm shipwrecks young Norwegian sailor Hans Lyngstrand in the English Channel near Dengate, aspiring journalist Martin Bridges takes a job at the local newspaper. When Hans moves into Martin's boardinghouse to convalesce and Martin interviews the young sailor for the paper, it upends Martin's otherwise uneventful world. Hans tells him of the shipwreck—and of his encounter with a vicious sailor vowing to seek revenge, who Hans believes may still be alive. So begins a complex friendship between the two young men that will cause Martin to reexamine his relationships with everyone around him.

In The Stranger from the Sea, the backstories Paul Binding creates for the characters of Ibsen’s classic The Lady from the Sea unfold in tandem with the secret romances, rivalries, and heartaches of a seemingly unremarkable town. The result is a lyrical and quietly captivating novel that will mesmerize readers from its opening pages.

“A sensitive depiction of youthful sexuality, the anguish of failed relationships, and the rights of women in a male-dominated world,” —TLS