Excerpt from Eradication by Jonathan Miles, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Half an hour or more passed before anyone spoke again. The captain sipped coffee and hummed and, when the radio squawked, sometimes tilted his thick head toward it. Adi found himself watching the mate, who, pressing his palms to the gunwale, kept dipping his head toward the water. From his lips swung a long rope of drool flickering neon green in the navigation lights' glow. Adi had presumed that sailors would be immune to seasickness, but then Adi had not been around sailors before. For that matter he'd never been on a boat before, not counting the paddleboats at the capital zoo and a sunset river cruise he'd once taken with his wife. So he didn't know.

When the captain spoke again, it was as though the previous conversation, about music and beer, had not ended—that it'd merely been paused without anyone's thoughts drifting in the interim. And some girls too, he said. Wouldn't that be nice?

It would, groaned the mate.

Cha cha, said the captain, swishing his backside. Cha cha cha.

Ahead Adi saw only bluish-gray water and grayish-blue sky, the water whitecapped, the sky star-flecked. Behind the boat, though, was brewing a sunrise unlike any he could remember seeing: gorgeous and streaky like some big-budget advertisement for divinity, the sky slashed with ribbons of orange and rose and peach and gold and the boat's deck blushing pink in its reflection. In other company Adi might've pointed to it, voiced his awe. But the sailors had clearly seen it, and were as clearly unimpressed.

Over the rim of his coffee cup the captain was grinning at the mate, whose head now drooped overboard. Who were you with at Angel's, huh?

Weakly, the mate waved him off.

I'll bet Chita, the captain said. It was Chita, wasn't it?

The mate's body heaved.

It's always Chita with you.

Into the sea went a gush of his insides.

The captain laughed while the mate sputtered and gagged. Poor Chita, he said. He lit a thin cigar and shook out the match. I am going to tell her you retch at just the mention of her name. I'm going to ask her if she thinks this means love.

Again the mate waved him off, before another spout of vomit left him.

We should ask Mister Killer here, the captain said, aiming his cigar at Adi. Should love make you retch?

The word killer piqued the mate. With watery eyes and a glazed chin he lifted his head to assess Adi, who knew he didn't square with anyone's image of a killer. He looked instead like what he had been until eleven months ago: a schoolteacher, an amateur jazz clarinetist, a husband, a father. The mate sat blinking at him.

I guess it depends on the love, Adi finally answered.

Yes! the captain shouted, as the mate went back to dangling his head overboard. It depends on the love. He nibbled his cigar and mulled this awhile, having mistaken Adi's circumspection for profundity. Then with mock courtroom gravity he addressed the mate: Will you define for Mister Killer the nature of your love for Chita?

As if on cue, the mate retched again.

What could he love about her? The captain frowned, mimicking thought. Maybe it's her hair. Chita has very nice hair. He wiggled his fingers around his head and grinned at the mate, who did not grin back. Silky silky.

He hummed awhile.

Or maybe, let's see—maybe it's that magnificent cyst on her shoulder? He turned to Adi, cupping a hand as if holding an invisible grapefruit. It's enormous. You half expect it to talk, like a pirate's parrot.

The mate wiped his chin with his forearm, muttering.

No, said the captain, and shook his head and sighed. I suspect the true nature of his love for Chita is that Chita charges less than the other girls at Angel's.

Excerpted from Eradication by Jonathan Miles. Copyright © 2026 by Jonathan Miles. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.