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978-0-89587-236-6
0-89587-236-6
$18.95 hardcover
4" x 7 1/4"
192 pages black-and-white photographs
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Virtually hidden
until the early 1980s, Duck, a village on the northern Outer Banks of
North Carolina, enjoyed several centuries of solitude and anonymity.
Only within the past two decades have eager developers transformed it
into the last summer boomtown in Dare County. Today, rental properties
far outweigh duck blinds, and realtors and retailers far outnumber
commercial duck hunters and fishermen. From May until September, there
are at least a thousand tourists for every Duck native, and absentee
landlords own considerably more of Duck than its year-round residents
do.
This work of
narrative nonfiction centers on Duck and the people, both living and
dead, who have had a stake in this community. It endeavors to chronicle
the village's changes by recreating its past, detailing its present, and
speculating on the future of this once sparsely populated neighborhood
of risktakers--the seafarers, fishermen, hunters, and entrepreneurs who
initially settled the area with their families. It includes profiles,
oral history, reportage, and personal essays. It even captures some
surprising details about the village, such as the story of Hargraves
Beach, one man's attempt to establish an African-American community on
the North Banks during the years of Jim Crow. The text is supplemented
by black-and-white photographs, some of which have never been published.
about the author
Judith Mercier has an MFA from Old Dominion University's creative
writing program. She has published articles, profiles, and short fiction
in local and regional magazines and journals and is the co-author of Battle
Cries on the Home Front: Violence in the Military Family. She lives
in Newport News, Virginia, where she teaches at Christopher Newport
University.
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