Course of the Waterman

Seventeen-year-old Bailey Kraft knows where he is going. He will "follow the water" and become a waterman like his father, grandfather, and generations of men before him. The work is backbreaking and often dangerous yet framed by the breathtaking beauty of the Chesapeake; it is a bred-in-the-bone life. But it is also a dying livelihood. Fish stocks are plummeting and with them, the harvests. Watermen, unable to earn a living, are being forced to give up their time-honored way of life. Yet Bailey is a Kraft---river royalty---with the Kraft gift for finding fish coded into his genes. He has a sense of purpose and belonging, until the day his father shatters his lifelong plans. Suddenly, he must fight the people he loves most, including his best friend, to hang on to his birthright. Set on the Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore, Course of the Waterman is the coming-of-age story of Bailey Kraft; his tough and determined little sister, Hannah; his best friend, Booty; and Booty's bitter, alcoholic father, Tud. Bailey faces fear, loss, and wrenching changes; yet amidst it all, he glimpses the unexpected possibilities that life can offer.

Nancy Taylor Robson grew up sailing and building boats with her father on Chesapeake Bay. After graduating from the University of Maryland, she worked as cook-deckhand on the coastal tug on which her husband, Gary Robson, was Captain. She is a contributing writer for Chesapeake Bay Magazine, and her essays and articles have appeared in Yachting, House Beautiful, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Christian Science Monitor, Sailing, Coastal Living, and Southern Living. She has two children.