When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man - Hardcover

Dybek, Nick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594488096 ISBN 13: 9781594488092

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2012

Synopsis

Every fall, the men of Loyalty Island sail from the Olympic Peninsula up to the Bering Sea to spend the winter catching king crab. Their dangerous occupation keeps food on the table but constantly threatens to leave empty seats around it.

To Cal, Alaska remains as mythical and mysterious as Treasure Island, and the stories his father returns with are as mesmerizing as those he once invented about Captain Flint before he turned pirate. But while Cal is too young to accompany his father, he is old enough to know that everything depends on the fate of those few boats thousands of miles to the north. He is also old enough to feel the tension between his parents over whether he will follow in his father's footsteps. And old enough to wonder about his mother's relationship with John Gaunt, owner of the fleet.

Then Gaunt dies suddenly, leaving the business in the hands of his son, who seems intent on selling away the fishermen's livelihood. Soon Cal stumbles on evidence that his father may have taken extreme measures to salvage their way of life. As winter comes on, his suspicions deepening and his moral compass shattered, he is forced to make a terrible choice.

About this title

Review

Dybek brings serious talent to bear... [The novel] finishes on a powerful note of moral murkiness... Evocative. (New York Times )

Finely crafted . . . a taut novel juggling the sometimes conflicting impulses to do the moral thing, and to protect those we love (Los Angeles Times )

Dybek has a gift for the atmospheric. (The New Yorker )

An engrossing and exacting moral thriller. (Peter Ho Davies, Author Of The Welsh Girl )

A thrilling yarn, delivered as if by a scarred man by the consoling light of a fire. (The Economist )

An authentic, atmospheric, coming-of-age story with a painful dilemma . . . A terrific debut. (C. J. Box )

[An] engrossing, often haunting thriller. (Washington Independent Review of Books )

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. (Booklist )

A book to watch. (O: The Oprah Magazine )

Complex and suspenseful . . . A genuine tragedy-powerful, mythic, unforgettable. (Jaimy Gordon, Author Of Lord Of Misrule )

Book Description

A community at risk, a family in turmoil, and a young boy becoming a man... A death on Loyalty Island leads a 14-year-old boy to be swept up in a storm of lies and deceit that makes him question his family - and pushes his own morality to its outermost limits. A thrilling American debut.

About this edition

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1594488096
• ISBN 13: 9781594488092
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 306