"its appeal is that it does not try to be appealing"

My friend and former colleague Earl Swift has a new book out about Tangier Island called CHESAPEAKE REQUIEM, A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island."  The book has earned a very positive review from the Washington Post.  

Earl spent the better part of two years on the island, living in a rented room and spending time with the watermen and their families.  And the review is written by an editor who ought to know something about Tangier, Steven Ginsberg, a native of nearby Onancock.

We knew Earl was working on the book, he would drop by the office now and then as he was heading to or coming back for a months-long stint on the island.  He knows the island well, having written about in over the last 20 years.  I've had the good fortune to spend some time on the island too, not even close to the time Earl has spent there but enough to learn a little bit about the people and the place - both through work and by sailing there.  Above is a photo from when I spent an afternoon in what they called the "situation room" (in fact the old birthing room of the island's now-closed medical center) as the senior watermen, including the mayor Ooker Eskridge, second from left, try to solve the world's problems.

The world's problems are tough enough to solve, but so are those of tiny Tangier Island.  It is disappearing, and doing so very rapidly.  According to the review, Earl makes the case that Tangier might be the first community in the country completely lost to climate change.

If you like Tangier, Chesapeake Bay or soft-shell crabs, I would suggest you take a look at the book.  The issues for the disappearing island are complex - a tiny population, money, government bureaucracy, logistics and independent, strong-willed waterman who for the most part do not believe in climate change and sea level rise.

There are several excellent observations in the Post's review, my favorite is this:  

"This is not Nantucket. Charm is not Tangier’s thing; its appeal is that it does not try to be appealing."

That is the truth.  I can't wait to read the book.