Gravesend Light: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Emotionally messy
Review: David Payne's writing reminds me of Pat Conroy. He uses lots of descriptive words and phrases, some with more success than others. He seems surest when writing what he knows best. The fishing lore was excellent and mind-expanding. I like a book that sends me to the dictionary.

He seems to really understand the emotions surrounding family dysfunction, particularly divorce and its aftermath. The religious culture of Gravesend was interesting.

All in all, I liked this book, but having read Ruin Creek just before, liked it better.

We read this for our book club and were trying to figure what town Killdeer represented in real life--somewhere a couple of hours from the Outer Banks, say Tarboro or Farmville. I

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent undertow.
Review: I first saw David Payne on cable channel Book TV. He was explaining how GRAVESEND LIGHT was nearly "orphaned" and not published. What a shame that would have been. This was a wonderful read, start to finish, and I will surely be going back to his prior works. Joe's claim that there are two covenants: "self-realization and self-sacrifice-and that they are completely incapatible" rang throughout this wonderful journey. And we will all of us (men) learn much from the strength of Day. I was sucked into the undertow of this story from the start and I never wanted to escape. It was an magnificent undertow. At times I drifted; other times I was carried willingly. Bravo, Mr. Payne. This was a wonderful read.

Rating:
Summary: Caveat emptor
Review: I have assigned Gravesend Light as a required text in my Introduction to Anthropology course at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. It has been a real hit with the students, providing them with close-up view of anthropological field work, along wih some of the theoretical issues on the presumed objectivity of the anthropologist. Yet, Gravesend Light is not some dry academic work. On the contrary, it pulses with passion, suspense, and vision. It makes you think, feel, cry, worry, celebrate, and so much more, with characters that you can neither remain neutral towards nor fast forget. The story revolves around Joe Madden, an anthropologist doing field work in the Outer Banks. Payne had already introduced Joe in a previous novel, Ruin Creek, where as young Joey he/we saw the break up of his parent's marriage (-- by the way, many of my students could not resist reading Ruin Creek as well during the semester). Gravesend Light presents Joey as an adult, an anthropologist, whose choices in life were shaped by his reaction to the break up of his parents. Anthropology and field work, with their emphasis upon observation, constitute an evolving theme in the development of the novel, as Joe is drawn into a web of relationships and events leading to a climactic storm at sea. There are some surprises at the end, which I will leave for the reader to find out for her/himself. I should also mention that some readers may find Payne's choice to switch character's perspectives confusing; just keep reading as this will soon become an enjoyable feature of the novel, and integral to its own point of view. A final note: I have read all of Payne's works, and each has touched my life in a special, often insightful, way. Most of over the sixty students who read the novel have reported the same. I strongly recommend Gravesend Light as well as any and all of Payne's works, both to other anthropology instructors and to every other reader.

Rating:
Summary: He's back!
Review: I've been waiting 7 years since "Ruin Creek" for a new book by David Payne. Was it worth it? I just finished it tonight and the answer is YES! YES! YES! This is Payne back to "Early from the Dance" form. My copy of that book is dog-eared, coffe-stained beatup and passed around from so many friends reading it, and for so many I know that book is THE book, the one defining book of books. I liked "Ruin Creek," but Early was my love. Is GRavesend Light better? I honestly don't know. But it's right there. The suspense is more intense in this one, the characters he writes about are grownups now. The sea adventure for my money was better than The Perfect Storm, and he made me look at an evangelical preacher in a way I never thought I would, with tolerance. I loved the character of Day, the feisty feminist OB who takes on this tough, crusty little fishing town. But the best thing of all for me is that, under the love story and the adventure, Payne is still writing about the search for who we are. I loved it. Period. Where has he been?

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT READ!
Review: Once again David Payne has written a book that one cannot put down until the very end! Since Early From The Dance, this writer has captivated all of our inner feelings about who we are and our endless search to discover ourselves. His characters are very real and allow us to see ourselves and those we all know in our journey toward understanding this complex life. The love story is one with which men and women can both identify and the supsense of the unfolding events makes this book hard to leave. He portrays the Outer Banks and its people in a beautiful way. More than a "good beach read", Gravesend Light confronts the many different realtionships and the issues we all deal with in our lives. I look forward to his next book!

Rating:
Summary: Lessons of life too drawn out
Review: There has to be an easier way to get characters to make life-altering revelations than "Gravesend Light". Does it really take a Perfect Storm and a guy (Ray) (just out of jail and so sure that love is what it is, that it doesn't matter who you love as long as you love someone), a pregnant teen 'outed' in church who comes to the protagonist's lover for an abortion, all the while the lover is pregnant and has to decide for herself if the choice was not using the diaphragm or keeping the baby, while our hero has somehow talked his way onto a fishing boat while trying to be an anthropologist and is undergoing a sea-change while the rest of the cast undergoes an earthchange. Phew.

Okay what really bugged me was at the end of the book when Joe and Day decided what to do (I won't spoil it for you have hadn't read it yet) and Day says- "Sounds like a plan". Life's weighty issues for well over 300 pages and that's what she says. Indeed after playing with his marriage proposal like a teen being asked to the prom. Day wasn't that shallow the entire book but at the end she's as shallow as the water he washed-up on.

Rating:
Summary: Lessons of life too drawn out
Review: There has to be an easier way to get characters to make life-altering revelations than "Gravesend Light". Does it really take a Perfect Storm and a guy (Ray) (just out of jail and so sure that love is what it is, that it doesn't matter who you love as long as you love someone), a pregnant teen 'outed' in church who comes to the protagonist's lover for an abortion, all the while the lover is pregnant and has to decide for herself if the choice was not using the diaphragm or keeping the baby, while our hero has somehow talked his way onto a fishing boat while trying to be an anthropologist and is undergoing a sea-change while the rest of the cast undergoes an earthchange. Phew.

Okay what really bugged me was at the end of the book when Joe and Day decided what to do (I won't spoil it for you have hadn't read it yet) and Day says- "Sounds like a plan". Life's weighty issues for well over 300 pages and that's what she says. Indeed after playing with his marriage proposal like a teen being asked to the prom. Day wasn't that shallow the entire book but at the end she's as shallow as the water he washed-up on.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening
Review: This is one of the top 2 or 3 novels I've read in the last five years, and until I picked it -- for the lighthouse on the cover-- I'd never heard of David Payne. Taking exception with a previous reviewer, I found Payne's portrait of Day one of the most sensitive and convincing male representations of female voice I've ever come across, reminiscent of D,H. Lawrence in a way (though stylistically there's little similarity). And the storm scene at the end is a tour de force, powerful and terrifying. On the whole, an extraordinary novel.

Rating:
Summary: Was the book inspired by "A Perfect Storm"?
Review: Wow, the preceding review from "S. Boston" was so wrong-headed and so wrong-hearted, I just had to respond. I've read Early from the Dance, Ruin Creek and Gravesand Light and though Ruin Creek is my personal favorite, this book is FAR tighter, far more disciplined than Early to the Dance, and it's heart is just as big. Pro-Life? WHERE did you get that? One of the truly admirable things about this novel is that it puts forward both the pro-life and pro-choice positions without tipping the scale in either direction; it's fair to both and, as such, completely devastating. And as far as Day, a pro-choice OB having unprotected sex, this story is about where PC politics breaks down and simple humanity takes over. DAY has a human moment-- are we going to pillory her for that? She lets herself slip-- doesn't this happen to committed Yale-educated pro-choice OBs just as much as to anybody else? Plus, she's desperately in love when this happens, and they're in the middle of an unfoldiung crisis, and there's alcohol. What makes the scene so great is that Payne had the guts to ALLOW her to be human in definace of PC dictates. If anything, I think the book ultimatly tips-- just slightly, slightly-- toward the pro-choice side, but it's really not about politics, finally, it's about being human, and how we repeat the destructive cycles we learn in youth from our mothers and fathers, and how, sometimes, with great luck and bravery, we break out of them and set ourselves free. No let down here.