Andreas Braddan's "Sea Interludes" is a delightfully fresh approach to a novel. On the surface, it is a collection of picaresque adventures, molded from the multi-cultural encounters of a young American bumming around the world working as a steward on a Norwegian tramp steamer. It is in many ways "The Odyssey" revisited, now set in the Golden Age of American Primacy, the late 1950s. With each port of call, with each new culture shock, with each shipboard or onshore relationship, with each unfolding international event, Andreas Braddan shapes not only the characters' involvement with history, but also a timeless human dynamic. In each episode, the steward and his fellow travelers find themselves caught in sometimes shocking, fantastic adventure. And in each, as many a "nauty" mariner knows, they narrowly extract themselves from the siren calls and quicksands of the cultures visited. Like Odysseus, they act boldly and take pleasure at will, only to escape back to the safety and sovereignty of their floating home.
Those of us sensitive to nostalgia do remember that glorious era. Life was sweet indeed. Each new encounter, each strange culture, each day of the journey was greeted as a sumptuous feast, rich in flavor and thrilling to every of one's senses. Ah, to be young, and American, and abroad