Excerpt: The Breakwater by Leslie Shimotakahara
Coming April 2026 from Cormorant Books
The Breakwater is a multigenerational saga about the long shadow of an unspeakable family secret, culminating in an overdue reunion between rivalrous brothers. It may be pre-ordered now from Cormorant.
The following is the first chapter.
Yas
In the beginning, my brother and I were friends. I think I can remember such a time. Stum was seven and I was nine. We’d fish together. Our mother was long dead by then and money was tight, so this was one way we boys could help out. We’d sell our catch to the fishmonger down the street and keep for ourselves the ugliest lingcod, which the old lady next door would fry up for our supper. Other days, we dug clams or netted crabs from pools among the rocks, created by the outgoing tide.
The inner harbour along the waterfront was fine for shellfish. But our favourite place to fish was a certain breakwater, a couple miles down the coast from where we lived at the edge of Victoria’s Chinatown. Stum and I would ride our flimsy, second-hand bikes, the salt air a phantom against our cheeks. Naturally, I would lead the way, every so often glancing back at my brother, his hair flying out, settling into a mushroom cap when he braked. The sky was usually overcast — misty — as I remember it. The ground rugged beneath our wheels, making everything appear jittery, on the verge of spinning out of control. The squawking gulls swooping above our heads had an almost preternatural whiteness.
“Race ya there!” I shouted.
Although Stum was fast, he wasn’t as fast as me. Occasionally, I let him beat me.
What we liked about this particular spot was that it was always deserted and the waters were admirably rough and choppy — hence, the need for the breakwater. The concrete walkway stretched out in a gently curving upside-down J, culminating in a small lighthouse, white at its base and red on top. Against the gloomy sky, it resembled a tube of lipstick, the very shade our mother used to wear. That daub, in the hue of an umeboshi plum, beckoned to me hypnotically. There, by the lighthouse, was the best place to fish, where noose-like coils of kelp floated just below the surface.
Those waves continue to churn up a storm in my ears. I hear them after all these decades. They crash against the cement, releasing their pungent spray.
One afternoon has stayed with me. The wind blew violently, the water, great sheets of silver puckering and cresting and twisting, in a haze of crystal dust.
“Look! Look!” Stum cried, his hand shooting outward, pointing at something.
What …? What was it? A dark, formless thing flapped around in the distance, in a blur of shadows. The head resembled a horse’s, and it seemed to have giant fins.
“It’s that famous sea monster everyone talks about,” Stum said excitedly, still pointing.
I’d turned to stone, speechless. At last, I managed to murmur, “I don’t know about that.”
“What are you talking about? It’s right there — plain as day.”
Laughing uneasily, I suddenly felt a great responsibility to be the older brother. “Baka! It’s just our eyes playing tricks on us. Maybe it’s an octopus. Only babies think that monsters exist.”
“You’re baka.” The wonder and happiness refused to fade from Stum’s voice; he saw this monster as a sign of amazing luck he’d been blessed with.
I couldn’t bring myself to trust my eyes, even back then, when I had the perfect vision of a child. To this day, a big part of me still thinks it must have been an optical illusion.
On the off chance that hazy thing had been real, it didn’t fill me with a sense of good fortune. Just the opposite. It was a sign of the dark, indecipherable times ahead, my powers of perception failing already.
About the Author
Leslie Shimotakahara is an award-winning author of three novels and a memoir, as well as numerous short fiction and essays. She won the Canada-Japan Literary Prize (2012) and has been shortlisted for the K.M. Hunter Artist Award. Her writing has appeared in the National Post, World Literature Today, and other anthologies and periodicals. She holds a PhD in English from Brown University, and lives in Toronto with her husband.
Book Details
Publisher : Cormorant Books
Publication date : April 4 2026
Language : English
Print length : 350 pages
ISBN-10 : 1770868259
ISBN-13 : 978-1770868250