Title: Duck
Description: Virtually hidden until the early 1980s, Duck, a village on the northern Outer Banks of North Carolina, enjoyed several centuries of solitude and anonymity. Only within the past two decades have eager developers transformed it into the last summer boomtown in Dare County. Today, rental properties far outweigh duck blinds, and realtors and retailers far outnumber commercial duck hunters and fishermen. From May until September, there are at least a thousand tourists for every Duck native, and absentee landlords own considerably more of Duck than its year-round residents do. This work of narrative nonfiction centers on Duck and the people, both living and dead, who have had a stake in this community. It endeavors to chronicle the village's changes by recreating its past, detailing its present, and speculating on the future of this once sparsely populated neighborhood of risktakers--the seafarers, fishermen, hunters, and entrepreneurs who initially settled the area with their families. It includes profiles, oral history, reportage, and personal essays. It even captures some surprising details about the village, such as the story of Hargraves Beach, one man's attempt to establish an African-American community on the North Banks during the years of Jim Crow. The text is supplemented by black-and-white photographs, some of which have never been published.
Subjects: Biography, History, North carolina, biography, North carolina, history
Places: Duck (N.C.)