On the island of Ys, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, safety lies behind the city’s high walls – where citizens live in opulent security while the shore-dwellers below rebuild their ruined homes after each great tide.

Danaé Poussin is an orphan – and a swimmer, a gift both rare and suspect on Ys. She was born to the sea but yearns for a life within the walls. Flowing between shore, city, and open sea, she navigates the rocky possibilities for women – from salter to thief to aristocrat to sailor’s wife – learning to steer through the sexist and classist indignities of the calm before revolution.

Sailors Can’t Swim is a squall of a novel: part bildungsroman, part maritime fairy tale, part history of an alternate eighteenth century. It reflects our own era, laying bare the meanness of meritocracy and arbitrariness of citizenship in a world where every possession, or privilege, belonged to someone else first.