* John Irving meets Annie Proulx in a magical novel about love and rivalry among the lobster pots*Stern Men is set on two remote islands off the coast of Maine, where for generations the lobstermen have fought territorial wars. Their unlikely saviour is eighteen-year-old Ruth Thomas, a smart, resilient, irredeemably romantic woman who avoids her destiny with a passion that serves only to draw her deeper into it.Ruth is obstinately determined to throw her education overboard and join the 'stern men' who work the lobster boats. She spends her days drifting among the island's eccentric residents: the lovable Mrs Pommeroy and her various deadbeat sons; Senator Simon, determined to make a museum of his arcane mudflat finds; and Simon's twin brother, Angus Addams, the most ruthless lobsterman alive. Only when Ruth meets a silent young Adonis from the rival island, a preternaturally gifted fisherman named Owney Wishnell, does she realize that the lobster walls, and a whole lot else, has got to change.
- ISBN10 1101013257
- ISBN13 9781101013250
- Publish Date 24 February 2009 (first published 22 May 2000)
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Penguin Group
- Format eBook
- Pages 304
- Language English