Although Smith Island lies only nine miles off the Maryland mainland, its five hundred inhabitants live much as their ancestors did three hundred years ago. They are exquisitely attuned to the habits of blue crab, oyster, and waterfowl. And they know that on any given day their lives literally depend on which way the wind is blowing.
Tom Horton spent three years living among Smith Island’s watermen and their families and has emerged with this marvelously intimate portrait of a deeply traditional community and its vanishing way of life. Whether he is following the crab harvest or attending a service at the local church, eavesdropping on bawdy kitchen-table gossip or chronicling the islanders’ disputes with seafood inspectors, Horton tells his stories with wonderful specificity even as he considers what they can teach us about living within nature and at a healthy distance from the rest of the world.
