HAPPIER THAN THIS DAY AND TIME
An Oral History of the Outer Banks of North Carolina
Nonfiction, History, Americas, Family & Relationships, Health & Well Being, Self Help
| Author: | David Poyer | ISBN: | 9781937997052 |
| Publisher: | Northampton House | Publication: | July 17, 2012 |
| Imprint: | Language: | English |
| Author: | David Poyer |
| ISBN: | 9781937997052 |
| Publisher: | Northampton House |
| Publication: | July 17, 2012 |
| Imprint: | |
| Language: | English |
"A major contribution to the preservation of the lore and heritage of the Outer Banks." -- David Stick
"The voices ring with authenticity." -- Paul Clancy, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
How much would you give to talk quietly for just one hour with your great-grandmother? Most likely, almost anything. But probably you can't buy it at any price. Time's torrent rushes by, isolating us like a hurricane-driven tide, the rising sea cutting us off from those who went before. It bears away the old voices and the old ways. Bears away too much of what we loved, and what we realize, too late, we still desperately need.
This book’s a bridge to that past. In a series of interviews conducted in the late 1970's and early 1980's, eight old people recounted their lives on a string of isolated islands of the North Carolina coast. The Outer Banks are a hundred-mile arch of barrier islands, from a few thousand feet to three miles across, punctuated by narrow inlets to the Atlantic. Low, backed by wide brackish sounds, they’re lands of the margin; half-land, half-sea; shaped by the eternal struggle of sea-currents, vulnerable to hurricane and war. These nine survivors tell of childhood, courting, marriage, and children; of hurricanes, depressions, wars, and death; of faith, doubt, love, and fear. They watched the Wright brothers fly; saw U-boats torpedo ships close offshore; dealt with blindness and heartbreak and shipwreck. Then, near the end of their voyages, they lingered for a little while to tell us of The Way Things Were.
And they'll tell us more -- if we’ll listen. With a little urging, they'll share their thoughts on the ultimate questions; good and evil, youth and age, triumph and suffering. From their first word, they cast a spell.
Welcome to the past.
--------------------------------
David Poyer is an internationally known novelist with close ties to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, to which this book is a tribute. Millions of copies of his thirty-plus books are in print, including national bestsellers and such favorites as The Return of Philo T. McGiffin, The Med, The Gulf, The Circle, Black Storm, The Passage, The Threat, The Command, Korea Strait, The Weapon, The Crisis, The Towers, and a Civil War at Sea Trilogy that begins with Fire on the Waters (Simon & Schuster). Along with this book of oral history, Northampton House has republished his four Hemlock County novels, The Dead of Winter, Winter in the Heart, As the Wolf Loves Winter, and Thunder on the Mountain, as well as a World War Two novel, The Only Thing to Fear, and an early thriller, White Continent. Poyer lives on Virginia's Eastern Shore with his wife and daughter, and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
"A major contribution to the preservation of the lore and heritage of the Outer Banks." -- David Stick
"The voices ring with authenticity." -- Paul Clancy, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
How much would you give to talk quietly for just one hour with your great-grandmother? Most likely, almost anything. But probably you can't buy it at any price. Time's torrent rushes by, isolating us like a hurricane-driven tide, the rising sea cutting us off from those who went before. It bears away the old voices and the old ways. Bears away too much of what we loved, and what we realize, too late, we still desperately need.
This book’s a bridge to that past. In a series of interviews conducted in the late 1970's and early 1980's, eight old people recounted their lives on a string of isolated islands of the North Carolina coast. The Outer Banks are a hundred-mile arch of barrier islands, from a few thousand feet to three miles across, punctuated by narrow inlets to the Atlantic. Low, backed by wide brackish sounds, they’re lands of the margin; half-land, half-sea; shaped by the eternal struggle of sea-currents, vulnerable to hurricane and war. These nine survivors tell of childhood, courting, marriage, and children; of hurricanes, depressions, wars, and death; of faith, doubt, love, and fear. They watched the Wright brothers fly; saw U-boats torpedo ships close offshore; dealt with blindness and heartbreak and shipwreck. Then, near the end of their voyages, they lingered for a little while to tell us of The Way Things Were.
And they'll tell us more -- if we’ll listen. With a little urging, they'll share their thoughts on the ultimate questions; good and evil, youth and age, triumph and suffering. From their first word, they cast a spell.
Welcome to the past.
--------------------------------
David Poyer is an internationally known novelist with close ties to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, to which this book is a tribute. Millions of copies of his thirty-plus books are in print, including national bestsellers and such favorites as The Return of Philo T. McGiffin, The Med, The Gulf, The Circle, Black Storm, The Passage, The Threat, The Command, Korea Strait, The Weapon, The Crisis, The Towers, and a Civil War at Sea Trilogy that begins with Fire on the Waters (Simon & Schuster). Along with this book of oral history, Northampton House has republished his four Hemlock County novels, The Dead of Winter, Winter in the Heart, As the Wolf Loves Winter, and Thunder on the Mountain, as well as a World War Two novel, The Only Thing to Fear, and an early thriller, White Continent. Poyer lives on Virginia's Eastern Shore with his wife and daughter, and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
