First published in 1928, now public domain, this Canadian classic describes the lives of the people that make up an isolated fishing community off Nova Scotia. The book is set just before the start of the First World War, in the opening years of the twentieth century.
This novel evokes the eternal battle between humans and their environment: the struggle of the fishermen to survive working in the harsh seas in order to earn their livings. Frank Parker Day (1881-1950) was a native of Nova Scotia able to draw on his own life experience to describe the island of Rockbound and its inhabitants.
Two feuding families, the Jungs and the Krauses are dominated by the "king of Rockbound", the sternly righteous and rapacious Uriah Jung. When the young David Jung arrives on Rockbound to claim his inheritance, a small share of the island, he is forced to confront an unforgiving, and controlled world. His conflicts—both internal and external—lock him in a struggle for survival.
His enemies are many: sometimes the ocean, sometimes his own rude behaviour, sometimes his own best friend, sometimes his secret love for the island teacher, but always his relatives and their ambitions for money and power.