Following an incident at sea, fifty-year-old Captain Eugène Marius finds himself without employment or purpose in Marseille, paying fruitless daily visits to the port’s shipping offices. Consumed by guilt, spurned by his family and faced with the futility of life away from the waters, Marius seeks solace in alcohol and the arms of a prostitute, but is unable to keep his mental and physical deterioration at bay.
Remarkable in its gritty descriptions of Marseille and the psychological portrait of its protagonist,
The Closed Harbour is a poignant, sharply written examination of the maritime profession and life as an outcast.
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'Words and incidents have been carefully chosen and placed
to give an effect of controlled power. The story of the disgraced
sea captain trying vainly to reinstate himself and slowly sinking
beneath the combined weight of his guilt and his
reputation has universal significance.'
The Times
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The Closed Harbour
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