Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn
is a coming-of-age novel of ample beauty, insight, and intensity. Defying the wishes of his family, James Pfeiffer—twenty years old and newly expelled from college—heeds the call of the open waters off the Rhode Island coast. Joining the crew of a broken-down scallop trawler, James seeks to learn the ways of fishermen like his father. Through endless days of exhausting labor in the company of dangerous men, James learns shockingly brutal and unexpectedly sobering lessons. But as James discovers the secrets of his motley crewmembers, he realizes that every fisherman has his own reasons to love the sea, in all its promise and treachery.