The Ghost Trap

In her impressive debut novel, Stephens offers a rugged and tender tale. Jamie Eugley, a ninth-generation lobsterman in the port village of Owls Head has cared for his brain-injured girlfriend, Anja, for three long years. Jamie suffers deep guilt over her near drowning accident while aboard his lobster boat and her subsequent debilitating coma. Anja's medical improvement has been frustratingly slow, but Jamie continues to nurse his naïve, stubborn fantasy of marrying the recovered Anja. Meanwhile, he deals with a dangerous and violent trap war among the lobstermen and a romance with Happy Klein, a first mate on a tourist schooner up for the summer season who wants Jamie to come back with her to Key West. The bawdy humor, snappy dialogue, colorful local sea myths and rich lobstering details add to the immense appeal of this textured narrative about a superstitious but independent lobsterman's inward and outward struggles. (Sept.)