A masterly study of grief memory & love recollected' Professor John Sutherland Chair of Judges Man Booker Prize 2005 The Sea is John Banville's Man Booker prize-winning exploration of memory childhood & loss When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday he is both escaping from a recent loss & confronting a distant trauma The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world Mr & Mrs Grace with their worldly ease & candour were unlike any adults he had met before But it was his contemporaries the Grace twins Myles & Chloe who most fascinated Max He grew to know them intricately even intimately & what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years & shape everything that was to follow