News - Local News

POSTED: Friday, Jul. 24, 2009

Blaine's Ken Ely publishes coming-of-age sea novel

BLAINE - Ken Ely crossed the Pacific Ocean by boat at age 4, read "Moby-Dick" when he was 12, and dreamed of joining the Royal Navy when he was a teenager.

So it's not surprising that a precocious 15-year-old boy and the Royal Navy play key roles in his first novel, "The Sons of the Waves."

A chiropractor and former Blaine City Council member, Ely let his self-published novel "bake on the shelf" for 20 years before he rewrote the middle portion. The 371-page, coming-of-age epic, complete with an extensive glossary of sailing terms, is suitable for adults and younger readers.

Ely, 60, is working on a second novel, and has published a short memoir, "Finding Peter Vincent," about a close friend of his youth who died at age 33.

Question: Who are the boys on your novel's cover?

Answer: Those are twins Cody and Cory Burk, whom I met as incredibly lively members of the Blaine High band. They're now 19-year-old college students. My wife, Rachel, and I became their legal guardians after we took them into our home.

My sea story features four brothers and two are twins modeled after Cody and Cory. The 15-year-old Willard Wyndham narrates the novel. He's essentially me, in terms of his ability to handle hardships and to think and speak as an adult.

Q: Sound like a plot-packed story.

A: It's set in 1988. That's when Wil joins the 36-gun frigate Imperieuse to make a film about the Royal Navy's war against the African slave trade. He gets more than a leading role in a motion picture. He soon finds himself the captain's adopted son and one of four brothers, with one the heir to an estate and a title in England.

Filming and family blending rapidly open old wounds - wounds inflicted by his natural father, wounds which only his adopted father can heal.

Q: Without spoiling the story, how does it turn out?

A: Returning with his newly forged family to the captain's home in the Philippines, Wil is immediately caught up in a set-piece feud the captain and pirate slave-trader Hai T'ao have waged against each other for years. It's a war with rules and reasons, but that makes it no less deadly.

Q: Where does the coming-of-age theme enter?

A: Wil wins freedom from the slavery of his past and makes his passage to manhood; a manhood thrust upon him by conflict, a manhood earned under the burden of responsibility, and a manhood bestowed for merit by his captain and adopted father.

Q: Why did it take 20 years to finish the book?

A: The beginning and ending were the anchors, but the character-driven part of the tale was not satisfactory. The marriage in the first version was not believable, because then I had only experienced a failed marriage. I've now been married to Rachel since 1991 and drew on that wonderful experience.

GET THE BOOK

Ken Ely's novel, "The Sons of the Waves," is available at Village Books, Goff's Department Store in Blaine, and Ely's chiropractic office at 365 H St. in Blaine. It also can be ordered online at Vervante.com.