The lobster kings : a novel
(Book)

The Kings family has been fishing lobster for 300 years and is descended from a famous painter who, family legend has it, was married to a mermaid. Now, however, their waters are being invaded by the rough men who work at an overfished neighboring harbor and who dabble in delivering boatloads of meth. Cordelia, the eldest of the three daughters, loves the work and is the obvious heir to her aging father's business, but her favored place has come at the expense of sibling rivalry. She's in love with her married sternman and is determined to preserve her way of life, even if it means confronting the men who are cutting her family's traps. Zentner spends a good deal of time setting up the family mythology and echoing Shakespeare's King Lear, but when the fishing wars heat up, so does the plot.