From the author of the National Book Award finalist The Suicide Index – hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “an extraordinary magical mystery tour of a book” – comes a startlingly original exploration of the unpredictability of fate and the mystery of our own mortality.
No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck (EastOver Press, 2024) is a poetic and philosophical meditation ignited by a beautiful, frightening, mysterious object: the seventeenth-century Swedish warship Vasa, which sank only minutes into its maiden voyage and lay forgotten underwater until it was found and raised more than three hundred years later.
“An utterly sui generis work . . . . Were this just the account of the retrieval of the ship-become-fantastic-reliquary, it would be a compelling documentary. That the outer narrative is propelled by the force of Wickersham’s compulsion makes it riveting . . . a tour de force.”
– Sven Birkerts, AGNI
“A haunted, haunting exploration of the nothings and somethings pulled from the deep . . . there are strange and simple truths here.”
– Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe
“Even after reading Joan Wickersham's extraordinary work in the past, I was staggered by this book. I’ve never read anything like it. It’s miraculous, unique and profound.”
– André Gregory, co-author of My Dinner with André
“A slim volume that contains multitudes . . . . Using the compelling saga of the Vasa as a vessel to vividly explore what lies in the hinterlands of human experience and memory, Wickersham offers a contemplative look at what can be lost, what is salvageable, and how we endure despite it all.”
– Tania Malik, Brooklyn Rail
“You may think you don't want to read a book about visiting a 17th-century shipwreck in a museum in Stockholm. That's exactly how Joan Wickersham felt about going to this museum in the first place. Then she became obsessed, and went back many times, and wrote this stunning book: about her own losses, about the reliquary impulse, about shipworms and skulls and widows, and no, you probably won't be able to read it just once. Maybe you have encountered something like this before but I have not.”
– Marion Winik, author of The Big Book of the Dead
“Compelling. . . . Wickersham skillfully twists and turns between temporalities and matters of fact to matters of feeling that remain unresolved. . . . Famously lost, famously found, and yet the way Wickersham explores it, the Vasa feels so current and personal, it remains unexplored terrain. . . . She comes off as both deeply reflective and also relatable, even darkly funny.”
– Jessica Walthew, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation
“Joan Wickersham uses the 1956 discovery of the fatal wreckage of a Swedish ship, the Vasa . . . as the starting point for an inventive consideration of all deaths . . . . A matter-of-fact voice of gripping control and authority.”
– Walter Cummins, California Review of Books
The Suicide Index
"An extraordinary magical mystery tour of a book." Los Angeles Times
National Book Award Finalist
Winner, Salon Book Award
An ALA Notable Book
Winner, Ken Book Award, National Alliance on Mental Illness
Chosen as one of the year's best books by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, New York Magazine, Amazon.com, and The Week
"In its discipline and art, The Suicide Index has the feel of a classic." Cleveland Plan Dealer
"Measured, elegant, gripping." New York Sun
"An amazing memoir." Nancy Pearl, NPR
“Completely flawless writing. I couldn’t put it down.” Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake and Bel Canto
The News from Spain
"An ode to heartbreak and regret." New York Times Book Review
"Elegantly structured, emotionally compelling… Short stories don’t get much better than this.” Kirkus Reviews, Best Books of 2012
"Wickersham makes a triumphant return to fiction." Elle
"Breaks new ground in our perceptions of what a short story can be." Boston Globe
"Divine." San Francisco Chronicle
In these seven beautifully wrought variations on a theme, a series of characters trace eternal yet ever-changing patterns of love and longing, connection and loss. Named one of the year's best books by Kirkus Reviews, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR. Two of the stories were chosen for The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading.
“Brilliant . . .The stories are gorgeous in themselves, but the way they speak to each other is truly extraordinary.” Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck