The Wooden Nickel
A Novel
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Move over, Richard Russo, there's an impressive new chronicler of the lives of hard-edged working men on the scene. The protagonist of Carpenter's second novel (after A Keeper of Sheep) is a Maine lobsterman, Lucas "Lucky" Lunt. His name is ironic, because the only luck Lucas has is bad. At 46, he's already had two angioplasties that have left him with a fluttering ticker, deeply in debt and unable to haul the huge lobster traps alone. After 20 years of docility, his wife, Sarah, is suddenly asserting her independence, his son is a delinquent skinhead, and his daughter is heading for college. He hires Ronette, the recently separated wife of the local lobster buyer, to be his sternman, and not surprisingly, the two fall into each other's arms. When Ronette becomes pregnant, Sarah leaves, and the downward spiral continues when Lucas gets into a territorial dispute with other lobstermen and wings one of them in an exchange of gunfire. He refuses to promise future good behavior and loses his fishing license. Sarah seizes the family home that has been Lunt property for three generations, and he's reduced to living with Ronette in a dilapidated trailer. He then begins fishing illegally for a renegade buyer and encounters a rogue whale that has more in common with him than he realizes; the climax involves fast and furious action. Carpenter's prose is strong and sinewy: the Maine fishing community is evoked with pungent realism, and the characters are memorable in their attempts to eke out an existence in a harsh environment. This is a fully engaging story that creates a powerful portrait of a man struggling to make sense of a world that seems rigged against him.
Customer Reviews
Great Read
Laugh out loud funny!
If you know anything about coastal maine life, you will love this book!
Wooden nickel
Wicked good book! Anyone who likes Maine fiction or lobstering will enjoy
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