The True Sea

by F.W. Belland

Book Overview

Set in the Florida Keys in the years from 1909 till 1925, "The True Sea" tells the story of a boy growing into manhood against the drama of the construction of the Overseas Railroad. Henry Flagler's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0030640148
• ISBN13: 9780030640148
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Holt McDougal
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

One of my top 2 historical reads on Florida

The True Sea by F.W. Belland very accurately describes what it was like to grow up the Florida Keys (and America) following the turn of the century. Although set on a fictional Key, the author makes every effort to transport the reader to the real 1910 Florida. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in what really happened in Florida while Miami was still a 'frontier town', and the changes made by Henry Flagler's railroad that went to sea. Prohibition, rum-running, greed and love of the sea all play integral parts in the characters lives. Read this book. You won't be disappointed! A beautiful companion to this book is Patrick Smith's 'A Land Remembered'. Enjoy them both!

An Undiscovered Gem

We were in Islamorada, Florida. My wife wanted a beach read, so we stopped in a local bookstore. She selected "The True Sea" and we both read F.W. Belland's 1984 novel. It is our opinion that this is the finest undiscoverd novel of south Florida ever written. It is 1901, and the remote settlement of Doctor's Arm grows a little and dies a little as the Flagler Railroad comes to this sleepy fishing village in the mid-Florida keys. Belland's painstaking research, and his love for the material, is apparent in this gripping tale of a boy's growth into manhood, and his inevitable showdown with the railroad, and with the future it brings. The last we heard, Mr. Belland is living beneath an extinct Nicaraguan volcano with his cats. He has no web site. He needs to write more. Seriously. Buy this book, if you can find it.