Literary Fiction · TenseA Rhode Island fisherman stakes everything on finishing a fifty-foot boat in his backyard
Spartina
by John Casey
A fisherman who can no longer make a living gambles to finish the boat he is building in his yard
Dick Pierce is a commercial fisherman on Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay who can no longer make a living from the sea. He is a kind, sensitive family man with a hot temper, and he often lashes out at the people he works for. His great passion is the Spartina, a fifty-foot fishing boat that sits unfinished in his backyard. To pay for its engine he takes a reckless gamble, and then he has to survive a storm at sea to keep his dream alive.
More about this book
Who
Dick Pierce, a commercial fisherman and family man with a quick temper.
World
The shores of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.
What makes it different
The boat of the title is the center of the story, and Pierce's hopes are tied to it.
Feel
Rugged and tense. It won the 1989 National Book Award for Fiction.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- SpartinaPublisher's page