BOOKS AND SCREENPLAYS authored by Sprague Theobald
THE REACH
BUY FROM AMAZON
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"3,000 feet below them, hiding in the black night of underwater caverns, the Dead Ones followed the small boat as she sailed on toward England."
The year is 1850, the town is Chester, Rhode Island. A young English woman has done the unthinkable; after ten years of brutal scullery duty, she has turned her back on Elmwood Mansion and gained passage aboard a ship headed toward England and her family.
Katherine Worthington, desperate to return to the love and spirit of the family she has left as a young girl, risks the wrath of her employer and fellow house-servants when she leaves her position at one of Chester's ducal mansions. With money she has managed to salt away, she braves the rough docks of the New England seaport to purchase passage aboard the 110-foot packet Galatea. But in the depths of the Atlantic, forces unholly seek to cut short her voyage and keep her as one of their own.
One hundred forty years later, in the fall of 1990, two men prepare to deliver a forty-foot sailboat from Chester to Plymouth, England. Chris Barlow and Paul Dwyer, dropouts from the nine-to-five corporate world, launch their fledgling boat delivery business by agreeing to sail the sloop Curlew 3,500 miles across the dangerous North Atlantic to England. Dwindling bank accounts, an absent owner with hidden agendas, seasonal hurricanes and forces inhuman conspire to block the way.
Three lives hang in balance as the wandering souls who inhabit the black depths of the Atlantic Ocean play cat and mouse with those who dare cross over their realm.
Built on a foundation of strong characters, portraying maritime life then and now, tying three lives together over a 140-year gap, examinning life at sea and life ashore, from the sublime to the surreal, The Reach is a novel that addresses the hidden terrors inhabiting the depths of the Atlantic and celebrates the limitless love found in the human soul.
FROM THE AUTHOR, Sprague Theobald:
Several years ago I competed in the "Two Man Trans-Atlantic Race" from England to the United States, aboard a thirty-six foot sloop. The race took thirty days. While sitting alone on deck during one of my mid-night watches, I heard voices. Understandable for someone racing across the Atlantic on a thirty-six foot boat with only one other person for crew. What wasn't understandable was that I heard the same voices several nights in a row; two women whispering to one another. On one particular night I heard one of the women alert the other, "Shhh ... here she comes." The voice came from outside the boat in the cold, dark Atlantic. It was very apparent that the woman was referring to our boat as we sailed toward the west. After I managed to gather my wits and get my heart beating its normal beat, the thought came to me; if ghosts and spirits can haunt and roam the land, why not the oceans of our world? Hence, The Reach.
I wrote this book while living away from my home waters of New England, in Los Angeles. At the time is was a way of keeping in touch with that part of the country I was longing to get back to. After the book started to evolve, it became a story which gave life and a very horrific voice to my original question: "If ghosts and spirits can haunt and roam the land, why not the oceans of the world?"
THE REACH - Screenplay
TARGET FIXATION - Screenplay - BlueCat Screenplay Semi-finalist 2006 - view site
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"VIEW OF SPORT " - article - New York Times (1990-91) Page 1 of the Sporting Section
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