Gravesend light

"Joe Madden, an intense young anthropologist, has retreated to his family's summer home on Little Roanoke on North Carolina's Outer Banks, an isolated village whose accents and social traditions date back to the time of Sir Walter Raleigh. He is conducting an ethnographic study on the lives of the fisher folk, so he signs on to the boat Father's Price, sharing the tough, timeless labors of the sea and entering a complicated, edgy friendship with ex-con Ray Bristow. He also begins a passionate love affair with Day Shaughnessy, a Yale-trained and fiercely feminist OB/GYN in residence on Little…