cover image An Island Out of Time: A Memoir of Smith Island in Chesapeake Bay

An Island Out of Time: A Memoir of Smith Island in Chesapeake Bay

Tom Horton. W. W. Norton & Company, $25 (316pp) ISBN 978-0-393-03938-2

Lying 10 miles off Maryland's eastern shore, Smith Island has been a fishing community for more than 300 years. It is a tightly knit, highly religious, hardworking Protestant community with a population of fewer than 500. There are no police, no jail, no local council; here, the church fills the role of government services. Horton, a former environmental reporter for the Baltimore Sun, lived on the island for two years, interviewing inhabitants and taking part in local activities. He tells an eloquent story of people intimately connected to the island who live by catching crabs (100 million pounds of blue crabs annually), oysters, terrapin and rock bass. He notes that boats are to the islanders what the horse was to the cowboys of the Old West. Horton writes about ""progging"" (foraging), a cat roundup, hunting and poaching, the seasons on the island. Looking to the future, he gives Smith Island another century before it is drowned by the bay. Readers who enjoyed William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers will be eager to read this memoir. Author tour. (June)