Ship Breaker

Bacigalupi, P. (2009). Ship Breaker Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY

"Nailer crawled out of the breakers and stood.  His legs were weak from so long swimming but he was standing on dry land, and he was alive.  He laughed madly at Bapi and Li and Rain and the hundreds of other laborers and crew gangs, all of them staring at him dumbstruck.

'I'm alive!' he shouted at them. 'I'm alive!'
They all said nothing, simply stared. 

Nailer was about to shout again but something in their faces made him look down.
Sea foam lapped around his ankles, rust and bits of wire.  Shells and insulation.  And intermixed with the ocean froth, his blood. Running down his legs in streams bright and red and steady, staining the waters with the pounding of his heart."

Real ship breakers in Bangladesh

This excerpt from Ship Breaker sums up the hope, the tension, the drama, and the danger that is the life of a ship breaker.  Nailer lives in post apocalyptic Gulf Coast America.  His daily subsistence is made from salvaging copper wiring from the dark corridors of wrecked oil tankers.  Death, injury and hunger are every day occurrences in a world sharply divided between the haves and the have nots.  Everyone in Nailer's world dreams of getting a "lucky strike", a find that will forever change their living status.

After a major "city killer" storm, Nailer and his good friend Pima find a small clipper ship wrecked on a deserted section of the beach.  Could this be the lucky break they dreamed of?  Nailer's journey of self discovery and passage from boyhood to man begins at the moment he decides whether to kill or help the lone survivor on the yacht.  Nailer comes to realize that he can change the course of his life and his community by his own actions.

This was a difficult, but absorbing read. The many graphic incidents of violence may be too harrowing for younger teens, but high school age and older will be drawn into Nailer's adventures.  Themes of family and honor run connecting threads throughout the story and teach valuable lessons.  Young thinking readers will also be made aware of a possible horrible future outcome that they can work now to avoid.

Coming May 1st, readers can re-enter the world of the ship breakers when the sequel/companion story The Drowned Cities  is released.  Read the first eleven chapters now.



This interview with author Paolo Bacigalupi reveals his strong commitment to the sustainability of earth's resources