“When you’re on a three-and-a-half month voyage around the world, you ought to be able to sit and consider the sea.”

Will Post, a celebrated and sometimes controversial columnist, is a professor on the MV Explorer’s Semester at Sea program, sailing around the world teaching the ups and downs of travel writing, while navigating the discomfort of three months at sea, as well as the uncomfortable truths that many of their stops bring up―poverty, colonialism, and violence, to name a few.

A novel of loneliness, death, and friendship, The Williamson Turndeftly explores what it is to be an American traveling the world, and how our relationships to each other can be comforting, challenging, and at times alienating. It is a novel of torch-passing and nostalgia, of dealing with how life turned out, whether or not it was as planned. With P. F. Kluge’s deft writing and sharp reflections, The Williamson Turn and its hero Will Post are not soon forgotten.