Search - Duck: An Outer Banks Village

The Book Report: Academic and writer Mercier finds paradise on the Outer Banks in the form of Duck, NC, a dinky little dune burg between the mighty Atlantic and the estuarine remnants of a bay that got cut off from the sea by the inevitable actions of time and tide. She then sets about excavating as much as she can of town history, both black and white, to preserve and present the face of change in a sad little elegy to the Good Old Days.

My Review: I am uncomfortable with made-up conversations in this sort of book. An entire chapter on the largely unchronicled life of Duck's black folks contains imagined dialogue that makes me squirm. It's condescending, and I don't think for an instant that it's what they said, and why in the hell didn't the lady stick to facts and let the cutesy impulse go? She could, and maybe should, write a novel about the life of the couple she places at the center of the black world of Duck. Better still, let someone more ept do it.

But don't lard it in to the "growth has prices, always has and always will" book that you've got here, Dr. Mercier. It detracts from the real merits of the book as it is, and it isn't your forte, quite frankly. It's not really recommended by me for that reason, unless you're a fanatical enthusiast for the Outer Banks. (Guilty.)