Following the success of his first novel, Sea Room (MacAdam/Cage 2002), Norman Gautreau returns to the coast of New England with his second book, Island of First Light.
Island of First Light takes place off the coast of Maine on remote Alabaster Island. Caitlin Bay has come to the island to escape her family, which is falling apart because of her husband’s affair and a horrific car accident. She meets Freddy Orcutt, an old-time islander who embraces her as a daughter, and O’zalik Moseley, a Native American who is trying to preserve her family’s island heritage while batting her own familial disturbances. Caitlin helps O’zalik publish an account of a tragic event that happened to her people many years before and the islanders become incensed when they are forced to confront the atrocities of their own ancestors.
Island of First Light is about human nature and the sense of family that we all search for when faced with adversity. Gautreau brings alive the rugged Maine coast, reflecting a landscape that can be as turbulent as the lives of the people who live there.
After a career as a management consultant and public speaking coach, Norman Gautreau left the profession to pursue his writing career. He and his wife drastically simplified their lives, sacrificing much of what they had accumulated, and today he writes full time, with his wife as a loving, but tough editor. They live in Wakefield, MA. Sea Room is his first novel.
“Part general fiction and part mystery, Norman Gautreau captures every essence of remote Maine and brings it to life. The characters are easy to love or to hate; some seem so evil you want to climb into the book and strangle them. He does a great job at portraying a rugged land and tough characters.”
— Round Table Reviews
Publication Date: April 5, 2004
Paperback
$14.00
289 pages
ISBN 9781596921214
trim size: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.9