Wokokon

This novel is a coming of age story minus the usual dramatic foibles and telegraphed plot twists. It traces the path of a young man struggling to come to terms with how to use his mind, and for what purpose. This struggle, subtly comic, hypnotic, and poignant by turns, is set on the island of Ocracoke (Wokokon was the Indian name) in North Carolina, where the young man moves to after dropping out of college, and partly involves local history—specifically, the Lost Colony, which the young man latches onto as an object of study and contemplation, to the point where fantasy and reality nearly mix. The other major dimensions of the novel are a love story complicated by the young man’s developing sense of himself as an individual, and the young man's friendship with a much older woman, which originates out of his imagination and his newfound need to "create" his life, but which eventually begins to grow into something concrete and genuine.