The Wooden Nickel

Lucky Lunt is an endangered species: a third generation lobsterman who works the same Maine waters as his father and grandfather in a boat called The Wooden Nickel. He can identify every car in town from the sound of its engine, but his world is changing faster then he can fathom. His wife has become an artist, selling sea-glass sculptures to tourists. His daughter is bound for college, while his son has turned angry and lawless. Lucky’s own heart is failing him, too. An operation has kept it ticking, but he can’t run the boat alone any more.

As the spring lobster season opens, the only deckhand Lucky can find to help load his traps is Ronette, the not-quite-divorced wife of the local lobster wholesaler. When the two make it out to the fishing grounds, someone else’s buoys are bobbing in his ancestral waters. Before he knows it, Lucky is in a lobster war and has abandoned all the rules: family, health, finance, even the rules of the sea that have guided him throughout his life. As waves of trouble turn into a flood tide, Lucky’s pride propels him into an epic confrontation with his enemies and a rogue whale — a battle his unreliable heart may not survive.

The Wooden Nickel is a classic story of a man raging against a changing world, full of pathos and comedy. It is a remarkable novel by a writer with a powerful, distinct, and original voice.