The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

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The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, a novel written by Yukio Mishima and published in 1963, chronicles the story of Ryuji, a sailor with vague notions of a special honor awaiting him at sea. As he begins to draw close to Fusako, a woman of the shore, he is eventually torn away from the dreams he's pursued his entire life. Fusako's son, Noboru, who shares an especially close bond with his mother through a voyeuristic ritual, hates the idea of losing his mother to a man who has let his hope and freedom die. This anger and fear of loneliness translates into terrible, savage acts performed by Noboru and the gang in which he is a part. The novel makes a powerful statement of what it means to discard the motivations that drive you, the consequences of resigning yourself to another's passions and habits, and the lengths some will go to in order to maintain what they believe to be true.

The novel was made into a film of the same title in 1976 starring Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles. The setting was changed from Japan to Dover to accommodate the film's location shoot.