The Stowaway: A Novel - Hardcover

Suspenseful and engrossing, The Stowaway is not only an adventure story of the highest calibre, but also a meditation on the anarchic nature of life, experience and will.

On an overcast day in March, one day?s journey into the Atlantic, two Romanian stowaways are found hidden on board the container ship Maersk Dubai. To the horror of the Filipino crew, the Taiwanese officers order the pair to be set adrift on a flimsy raft. In the blink of an eye they are gone -- sucked beneath the enormous ship?s wake.

Weeks later, the ship?s bosun, Rodolfo Miguel, finds another man, frightened and hungry, hidden in the bowels of the ship. Instead of turning him over to the ship?s officers, he makes the courageous decision to hide the man, endangering not only himself but also his fellow sailors, who help him.

Miguel is a true sailor, at sea for more than half the year, miles from his wife and five children. The man he rescues is a nineteen-year-old Romanian named Daniel Pacepa, who is haunted by a violent past. The men have no shared language, but their mutual experiences of poverty, desperation -- and the will to live -- bind them together.
Excerpt from The Stowaway
To Rodolfo, it seems there is no passage of time -- not even the tiniest fraction of a second -- between the existence of the stowaways and the non-existence of the stowaways. They are there, and then, simply, they are not, the flimsy raft sucked under by the big ship?s wake. Rodolfo stands perfectly still, gaping not so much at the alacrity with which two men ceased to be, but at the impeccable ease with which evil appeared out of salty vapour, and claimed for itself the Maersk Dubai.

Advance Praise for The Stowaway:
"The Stowaway is a terrific contemporary sea-story. It resonates with the great themes of maritime literature and reminds us that the sea is, even now, an arena of suffering and high courage and a crucible of moral choice. The story of murder, fear and redemption aboard the "Maersk Dubai" comes vividly alive in this fine, compelling novel." -- Derek Lundy, author of The Way of a Ship and Godforsaken Sea

Praise for The Final Confession of Mabel Stark:
“Robert Hough pulls together fact and fiction to unfurl a life that invites sheer, slack-jawed fascination.” -- Time

“Never flagging, the compelling story thunders along like a runaway circus train bearing a dangerous cargo of painful memory, wild animals, grotesque characters and outlandish stories, all told through the distinctive, often humorous, voice Hough creates for his protagonist.” -- The Globe and Mail

“The frame story . . . is reminiscent of both The Stone Angel and The Stone Diaries. . . . Mabel Stark is a bold and remarkable literary creation.” -- The Vancouver Sun

“This is one of the most enjoyable and involving first novels that I have read in years. . . . Mabel Stark is the first heroine I’ve fallen in love with for a long time.” -- The Gazette (Montreal)