Cover of Rockbound

Rockbound

To the harsh domain of Rockbound — governed by the sternly righteous and rapacious Uriah Jung —comes the youthful David Jung to claim his small share of the island. Filled with dreamy optimism and a love for the unspoken promises of the night sky, David tries to find his way in a narrow, unforgiving, and controlled world. His conflicts are both internal and external, locking him in an unceasing struggle for survival; sometimes the sea is his enemy, sometimes his own rude behavior, sometimes his best friend Gershom Born, sometimes his secret love for the island teacher Mary Dauphiny; but always, inevitably, his Jung relatives and their manifold ambitions for money and power.

Read more

The balance of life on Rockbound is precarious and thus fiercely guarded by all who inhabit its lonely domain, but just as a sudden change in the direction of the wind can lead to certain peril at sea, so too can the sudden change in the direction of a man's heart lead to a danger altogether unknown.

Enormously evocative of the power, terror, and dramatic beauty of the Atlantic sea, and unrelenting in its portrait of back-breaking labour, cunning bitterness, and family strife, Rockbound is a story of many passions-love, pride, greed, and yearning — all formed and buffeted on a small island by an unyielding wind and the rocky landscape of the human spirit.

Roockbound won Canada Reads in 2005.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 326 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Rockbound? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Rockbound. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. King Leary Shares canada reads, canadian, Canada
  2. Next Episode Shares canada reads, canadian, Canada
  3. The Bone Cage Shares canada reads, canadian, Canada
  4. Two Solitudes Shares canada reads, canadian, Canada

“People who read Rockbound tend to reach for these next.”

  1. From The Fifteenth District
  2. Children of My Heart
  3. The Last Crossing
  4. The Heart Is an Involuntary Muscle

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction), start with these.”

  1. Each Man's Son
  2. Bearskin Diary
  3. How I Spent My Summer Holidays
  4. Children of the Day

“If it was the canada reads that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Bone & Bread
  2. Cockroach
  3. The Age of Hope
  4. The Illegal

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus
  2. Time of Wonder
  3. Fable
  4. The Island at the End of Everything