What do readers think of The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont? Write your own review.

We take to the water with debut novelist Amber Dermont in The Starboard Sea, a coming-of-age novel that treats us to both the beauty of sailing and the dark side of privilege. I never tired of Dermont’s lovely homages to the wind; her protagonist Prosper reads it like prose: “You never sail with one wind. Always with three. The true, the created, and the apparent wind; the father, son, and Holy Ghost. The true wind is the one that can’t be trusted.” Indeed, as Dermont plays out the metaphor, we watch Prosper continually trim his sails to fit his new situation: he has been kicked out of one prep school (acting out after his best friend’s suicide), and is shifted to another for his senior year of high school. A few mysteries -- one of which may be murder -- keep us turning pages.

I grew weary, however, of the stereotypes; it seems every “prep school novel” comes ready-made with a cast of profligate, spoiled, rudderless rich kids. Prosper tells us, early on, “I felt myself becoming a cliché. The boy in trouble. The wealthy father. The school in need and willing to offer refuge.” Indeed, these rich boys commit horrendous acts with no conscience. The girls are glamour queens, naked beneath fur coats. (“It’s tanuki, silly. Japanese raccoon dog. Very rare. I should probably be arrested for wearing it.”) All are dissolute heirs to fortune (“…Yazid had a killer British accent, a closet full of bespoke Savile Row suits and a well-heeled cannabis habit.”) They have “prep school nicknames” (Taze, Kriffo, Race, Cakes). When the boys go to The Head of the Charles Regatta, they first cruise through a party in the penthouse of The Charles Hotel, grab Bloody Mary’s and speak to the president of Harvard, who begs one of the boys to “ditch Princeton and come to Cambridge.” They party in houses with famous paintings and sculptures, and with girls like Fernanda and Flavia, who “looked like the results of the world’s most successful genetic experiment. Each girl had caramel skin, full lips, bright blue eyes…” and “ …went to Le Rosey in Switzerland. The school of actual kings.” But even if you live in the rarefied air of East Coast and international prep schools, you will find it difficult to believe the sardonic, snappy repartee between characters is from the lips of teens. (When a white Mercedes and a driver show up for the boys, courtesy of Kriffo’s parents, Taze complains. “Thought your dad was sending a BMW. Not this pimpmobile.” Later, when the Mercedes is swapped for a black BMW, Cakes says “Nice car. Are we doing a drive-by shooting later?”)

In this episodic novel, we sail quickly from scene to scene, experiencing vandalism, awkward attempts at sex, shady Wall Street goings-on in the stock market crash of 1987, even a murder and its cover-up. I loved Dermont’s beautiful passages of wind, weather, and celestial navigation but lamented the overdrawn characters at the prep school. (Of course the dean is corrupt. Of course the local police can be bought off.) But there is enough here that is deft and skillful that when I see her name on another novel … I’ll bite.

I found this novel to be a cookie cutter story of prep school boys from rich families gone bad. The story revolves around an individual who was kicked out of the "good" prep school and now attends the prep school for "bad" and troubled kids. Decisions are made, some are mistakes, kids learn, sometimes with life changing results. I'm afraid the best thing I can say is that the book kept me interested long enough to finish.