Books: Sculptor at Sea

FO'CASTLE WALTZ—Louis Slobodkin—Vanguard ($2.75).

In the doldrum days between World Wars I & II, Louis Slobodkin, then a broth of a boy, now a ranking U.S. sculptor, decided to ship as a deckhand on the tramp freighter S.S. Hermanita, plying between the Port of New York and Latin America. Fo'castle Waltz is his 352-page total recall of this nautical episode.

Soon Sailor Slobodkin (self-described as "a fat, soft guy with glasses") found himself loading cargo, eating slop and doing soogie moogie (scrubbing paint work) with a crew as oddly assorted as flotsam & jetsam...

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