Tabitha Lasley worked for ten years as a journalist. He has lived in London, Johannesburg and Aberdeen. Her first book, The State of the Sea (2021; Asteroid Books, 2023), received critical acclaim, was nominated for various awards, and was chosen as Book of the Year by The Guardian. (Los Angeles Times).

Autobiography, portrait of masculinity, isolation and feminine desire, “The State of the Sea”of Tabitha Lasleyis one of the most recent publications of the editorial staff Books on asteroidsa book that manages to immerse readers in the story of how fighting, hard work and competitiveness prevail within a stormy subculture.

Translated by Madrid Catalina Martinez Munozresponsible for the Spanish translations of the obras of authors such as Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Doris Lessing y Thomas Hardy, among others, this book presents a series of reflections from the author in torn on the crisis of the cultura masculina que impera en le world.

In these pages, around 288, Lasley sets out to shatter preconceptions about love, attraction, and class conflict.

Celebrated as one of the most important British debuts of recent years, “The State of the Sea” It is a highly publicized play, which prowls at the limits of the novel, the story and the testimony.

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Approaching his thirties and coming out of a complicated relationship, Tabitha Lasley he finds himself having to quit his job at the London magazine for which he had worked for several years, and spends his savings to rent an apartment in the city of Aberdeen, in the northeast of Scotland; He moved there for six months, with the aim of writing a book on oil rigs and the people who work there.

As she delves into their stories, Lasley begins to understand the way they act and interact with each other, but what stands out the most to her is the posture they adopt when the women are there. The more time she spends in this city, the more Lasley understands that her presence causes strange behavior in the workers and in herself. At that moment, she meets a man who jeopardizes the whole project, as well as her emotional peace of mind.

book cover "sea ​​state"by Tabitha Lasley.  (Asteroid Books).
Cover of the book “The State of the Sea” by Tabitha Lasley. (Asteroid Books).

The author had spent nearly four years writing a book, the notes of which had been stolen from his apartment. The moment this happens, she decides to venture out and that’s how she ends up in this particular Scottish town. Thanks to a series of interviews that he conducts for six months, he manages to shape a project that should not have been born as he did.

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However, this wasn’t the first time Lasley had broached the subject, not so much of oil companies, but of masculinity and its dynamics. When she meets this mysterious man, her project becomes much more personal. Caden, which is the name of the subject in question, belongs to a fairly definite social class. He is a married man with children, with problems in his marriage, like most men who live in this town and work in the oil companies. When they don’t have a girlfriend, they have a wife, and sometimes they have both.

“In some ways, he was the boyfriend I learned the most from. He was two years older than me, at an age when that difference is very noticeable. He taught me a few things. His gospel was about “a frank and austere world that I knew very little about, but its teachings stayed with me forever. Some that I passed on to other people. It taught me how to tie my sneakers without showing the shoelace. Tighten the ‘anorak at the waist to keep him looking like a girl. He taught me – I still don’t know how he knew – to bring the soles of my feet together when I was about to cum, to intensify the pleasure. He told me about hardcore before it became happy hardcore, when it had this syncopated rhythm and this air of impending doom. He tried to teach me, without much success, how to fight, how to punch. He told me that all boys have to put up with being beaten at least once in their life He had given a few but also had r received one, when strangers picked him up and carried him through the station, like a victorious football team carries its captain onto the field. Then they threw him on the platform, stomped on his ribs and kicked him in the head” – (Fragment, “The State of the Sea”by Tabitha Lasley).

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In these pages, the reader will turn to the recent testimony of the life of the writer, according to her relationship with this man and the discoveries she makes of his noisy and routine behavior, while living a life where security counts almost nothing, production is at the first level, and the distance between life and death is zero and depends on how many and what can be in the pockets.

Lasley’s analysis of masculinity in this book is simply fascinating, determined by technology and customs. They are men who live among men, trying somehow to maintain balance in their lives, at the mercy of an unpredictable sea that keeps them isolated.

It is, ultimately, “The State of the Sea”a very personal account of someone who stops in her life to understand the need to move forward, who goes to bars and makes bets, who sees other infidels, who herself is unfaithful with someone another, who hears about suicides and murders, who he writes and writes without really knowing where he is going, that this book is half a novel, half who knows what, and which is, in itself, a true play.

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