A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
Set on North Carolina's windswept Outer Banks, Ruin Creek tells the story of the Madden family. May and Jimmy's reckless, incandescent teenage love has given way, a decade further on, to their son Joey's brokenhearted witness to the dissolution of their marriage and of a family bond he held stronger than time or death. Turning to his grandfather, Pa Tilley, Joey spends long summer days learning to fish the treacherous waters of Oregon Inlet, where North Carolina's mighty Albemarle outrushes into the Atlantic Ocean. One fateful afternoon, a moment's inattention at the boat ramp finds Joey surfacing fifteen yards astern, watching the shoreline recede as the current seizes in, his own name and the boom of the rollers the last thing he hears before the water fills his ears...