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A Literary Coastal Climate Novel of Resilience and Community
After Cossacks burn their home, ten-year-old Deborah and her father flee their shtetl to a remote island in Maine’s Penobscot Bay, seeking refuge and a new beginning. More than a century later, their descendants are once again uprooted—this time by climate change, rising seas, and a collapsing world.
As coastal towns disappear and families move inland, a new community forms: off-grid, tightly knit, and shaped by an unlikely alliance of islanders, relatives, and refugees. Through linked stories spanning generations, Sometimes an Island explores how people rebuild, remember, and endure in the face of upheaval.
Book Club Pick
Sometimes an Island is an ideal book club selection, offering rich themes of climate change, migration, resilience, and community. Its interconnected stories invite discussion about memory, identity, and how we respond to crisis—both personal and global.
A discussion guide is available to support deeper conversation.
Why readers love this book:
- A literary coastal climate novel spanning generations
- A powerful exploration of resilience, migration, and survival
- A windswept Maine setting shaped by rising seas
- Interconnected stories that build a rich, layered narrative
- Ideal for readers of literary fiction, eco-lit, and book club reads
Browse more literary coastal fiction from Sea Crow Press.
For readers who love:
- Literary climate fiction and eco-lit
- Multi-generational family sagas
- Coastal settings shaped by landscape and change
- Stories of migration, resilience, and community
- Interconnected or novel-in-stories structures
For readers of:
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
- Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
- Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
- The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
Other Retailers
Sometimes an Island
“Gorgeous and Immersive”—Booklife
"With acute vision and deep soulfulness, Ellen Meeropol imagines the fate of our fragile planet. In this powerful, prismatic novel-in-stories, she weaves a layered portrait of humanity's capacity for love—and for destruction." —Debra Jo Immergut, author of You Again
"Told in a cascade of Greek chorus-like voices, Sometimes an Island is a chilling story of the world we live in and our precarious place in it." —Ann Hood, author of The Stolen Child
"Sometimes an Island captures the peacefulness offered by the secluded island life of Penobscot Bay in Maine, while juxtaposing that simplicity with the many family tensions that define us all. Ellen Meeropol writes in a precise prose that imbues her characters and the locations in which they live with a beautiful clarity that rings true. As a resident of Vinalhaven Island, I found Sometimes an Island to be both authentic and a true pleasure to read." —Caleb Mason, author of Thickafog
In Sometimes an Island, Ellen Meeropol weaves a miraculous story of love, loss, and resistance—braiding past and future in a haunting portrait of a family's multi-generational struggle on their coastal Maine island. As the climate crisis ravages the world in 2029, this saga of intentional communities transforms into an urgent warning and a radiant wonder. With precision and emotional depth, Meeropol illustrates how our connections to each other become our most vital resource against encroaching devastation. A masterfully crafted story that celebrates the fierce, fragile resilience of the human spirit when everything familiar threatens to wash away.—Randy Susan Meyers, international bestselling author of The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone
"Gorgeously written, this novel-in-stories brings the world—past and future—so alive you can taste, feel and see it. Sometimes An Island asks the question: can our stories save us? A family that once fled pogroms finds the answer as they grapple with impending disaster. Highly recommended." —Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder
