Book excerpt: A novel about a Bronx Irish fishing family on City Island in New York City. Stories are told by a father, his two sons, the woman they both love and a teenage grandson, about the dangers of life at sea and the perils of life on land: how families pull us together and tear us apart. The characters struggle with the dreams they have for themselves and each other, they battle a relentless sea for their living and try to come to grips with their dependence on and rejection of each other. But as things seem at times hopeless, time and hope offer redemption from unlikely sources. Like life, a story of struggle that aspires to a happy ending.