Hatteras Light: A Novel

by Philip Gerard

Overview

Compelling story of the dedicated keepers of Hatteras lighthouse, set off NC's Outer Banks during the final days of WWI.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780895871664
Publisher:	Blair
Publication date:	01/01/1997
Series:	Salem Selections Series
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Philip Gerard is the author of three novels and six books of nonfiction, including Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey Through the Heart of North Carolina and The Patron Saint of Dreams, winner of the 2012 North American Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction from The Independent Publisher.

Editorial Reviews

First novelist Gerard obviously has great affection for the lore of the seafaring people of Hatteras Island off the coast of North Carolina, but this historical fiction about lighthouse keepers and sailors threatened by a German U-boat toward the end of World War I is just a mediocre sea adventure whose passionate figures are like watered-down Thomas Hardy characters. After an initial sighting, dismissed as improbable by the villagers, the insular Hatteras community is shocked by the sinking of an American ship by the German vessel. Readers must believe that a small naval craft is the only ship President Wilson's entire armed forces would spare to challenge an enemy submarine operating just yards from the American shore. Between the first encounter and the final face-off with the U-boat, a sailor and his son drift unrescued in a disabled fishing boat, romances criss-cross, and the islanders resent the Yankee skipper of the submarine chaser. Perhaps this work could have been sharpened into a boy's adventure. (October 15)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In the late spring of 1918 a prowling U-boat makes the always treacherous waters off Hatteras Island even more dangerous. Its presence creates a crisis among the lighthouse keepers, lifesaving crews, and fishing families who inhabit the island. The Navy can provide them with little help, and if they are to rid their shores of this strange new menace the Hatteras folk may have to betray the very values that give their lives meaning. With its refreshingly different setting and its provocative moral questions, this first novel succeeds admirably as a tale of wartime adventure. Unfortunately, it flounders somewhat when its author tries too hard to make it also a social commentary about the forces that bind both families and communities together. Nevertheless, a worthwhile purchase and worth recommending to readers of nautical and/or adventure stories. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph Mass.

Library Journal