Hard Bottom: A Novel (Hardscrabble Books)

Caught between the increasingly industrialized fishing business and the relentless development of his native Cape Cod, Ollie Cahoon, thirty-six and working a dragger out of Chatham, Massachusetts, feels ever more adrift both at sea and on land. In a desperate effort to compete with the huge, mechanized boats of large-scale fisheries, Ollie goes deeply into debt, yet still finds himself fishing the "hard bottom" rock- and debris-strewn beds avoided by larger boats.

When his mate Pig leaves for more lucrative work, Ollie reluctantly hires his brother-in-law, whose innocent but costly mistake only adds to Ollie's troubles. On shore, Ollie faces the disintegration of his marriage and separation from his young son. On top of everything else, Ollie has become the town pariah, since his refusal to sell water rights to land he owns stands in the way of a discount mall that may save the town's faltering economy. Beaten down by his financial, marital, and legal burdens, Ollie is slowly but inexorably driven toward a final desperate stand.