[J. R. Salamanca's Embarkation poses a] problem. Although the main character, Joel Linthicum, is called an artist, the word doesn't quite fit. He is a master boatwright of the Maryland tidewater, a demonic perfectionist who has dedicated his life to designing and building ever more beautiful, sleek and elegant racing sloops. The story of Joel's family, an innocent sacrifice to his "art," is told by his elder son, Aaron, a talented but failed actor who feels that his father has drained him of courage for either work or love.

After Joel is lost in a storm at sea, Aaron comes home to settle the dead man's affairs, and as he broods nostalgically and bitterly on past and present, we gradually take the full measure of Joel Linthicum's zealous, ruinous dedication. When his debts threatened the loss of his shop, he burned the family house to the ground for the insurance money. Nothing and no one could ever matter as much to him as the "one perfect boat that he had an idea of, somewhere back in his mind, that he was working toward."

The best thing about Embarkation is Salamanca's richly affectionate descriptions of rural Maryland, the smell and texture of the Chesapeake shore, of fast boats in dark water. He has an expert's fondness for the mechanics and accouterments of a boatwright's craft…. None of the human beings in Salamanca's landscape attains the dense, tangible solidity of the implements, wood and boats. Yet precisely because Embarkation is really a book about a craftsman rather than an artist, it demands not faith but concrete knowledge—highly specialized information about the way boats are designed and constructed—if one is to appreciate Joel Linthicum's mastery. Thus, to the landlubber, much of Embarkation is inaccessible. (p. 18)