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Cal lives with his parents on Loyalty Island. Each winter, Cal’s father – a captain of the island’s trawling fleet – sets sail for Alaska; and though Cal is still too young to join them, he is old enough to know that everything depends on the fate of those few boats, thousands of miles north.
When the fleet’s owner dies, not only is the town’s livelihood threatened, but so too is Cal’s family. With winter fast approaching, and the fleet on the brink of extinction, Cal starts to suspect that his parents both have secrets to hide. Plagued by doubt, his loyalties strained and his moral compass thrown wildly off course, Cal is forced to make a brave and terrible choice.
When the fleet’s owner dies, not only is the town’s livelihood threatened, but so too is Cal’s family. With winter fast approaching, and the fleet on the brink of extinction, Cal starts to suspect that his parents both have secrets to hide. Plagued by doubt, his loyalties strained and his moral compass thrown wildly off course, Cal is forced to make a brave and terrible choice.
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Reviews
An authentic, atmospheric, coming-of-age story with a painful dilemma . . . A terrific debut.
Dybek brings serious talent to bear... [The novel] finishes on a powerful note of moral murkiness... Evocative.
[An] engrossing, often haunting thriller.
Complex and suspenseful . . . A genuine tragedy-powerful, mythic, unforgettable.
This is a book about transitions, and revelations, and the thin line between acting out of fear, and out of out of a sense of morality . . . Dybek is a clean and stripped-down stylist, striking a delicate balance between ambiguity and life-changing clarity.
Dybek has created a superbly orchestrated and soulful drama of loyalty to family and an imperiled way of life and the fathomless forces that make a good man go bad.
An engrossing and exacting moral thriller.
Dybek has a gift for the atmospheric.
A thrilling yarn, delivered as if by a scarred man by the consoling light of a fire.
A book to watch.
Finely crafted . . . a taut novel juggling the sometimes conflicting impulses to do the moral thing, and to protect those we love