Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Infringe the Copyright of THE FISHER KING by Hayley Kelsey? Read on to Decide for Yourself (see more at https://medium.com/@hayleykelseyauthor)
Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Have Striking and Substantial Similarities to THE FISHER KING?
Nearly identical title to The Fisher King: The Lobster Kings.
Nearly identical main characters’ surnames: In The Fisher King: Kingsley. In The Lobster Kings, Kings.
Strikingly similar use of literary allusions: The Fisher King is based on Sir Percival’s quest for the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend, alludes to the fisher king. The Lobster Kings is based on King Lear, alludes to royalty.
Strikingly similar use of literary allusions in main characters’ names and roles: In The Fisher King, Patriarch King’s name and character are symbolic of his role as the fisher king; Gail’s name and character are symbolic of her role as the grail knight; a main character is named Petey. In The Lobster Kings, Patriarch Woody Kings’s character is symbolic of his role as King Lear; daughter Cordelia’s name and character are symbolic of her role in the play; a minor character is named Petey (note identical spelling).
Similar setting: In The Fisher King: small village on Chesapeake Bay island. In The Lobster Kings: small village on Maine island.
The Fisher King is told from the first-person point-of-view of the female protagonist Gail. The Lobster Kings is told from the first-person point-of-view of the female protagonist Cordelia.
In The Fisher King, generations of the Kingsley family have lived and fished on the island for over 200 years. In The Lobster Kings, generations of Kings family have lived and lobster fished for 300 years.
In The Fisher King, traditional commercial fishing is threatened by overfishing, big business, technology, global commerce. In The Lobster Kings, traditional commercial fishing threatened by overfishing, big business, meth-dealing lobstermen, technology, global commerce.
In The Fisher King, Patriarch King is tyrannical, controlling, irascible family patriarch and president of the Watermen’s Association. In The Lobster Kings, Patriarch Woody Kings is tyrannical, controlling, irascible family patriarch and president of the Co-op.
In The Fisher King, Patriarch King espouses “family first.” In The Lobster Kings, patriarch Woody Kings espouses “family first.”
In The Fisher King, Patriarch King welcomes big business plan to turn fishery into profitable business but are wary of change to traditional fishing from it and from global economy. In The Lobster Kings, Patriarch Woody Kings welcomes big business plan to turn fishery into profitable business but is wary of change to traditional fishing from it and from global economy.
In The Fisher King, the plot centers around the importance of inheriting and restoring the fishing grounds, passing down to next generation. In The Lobster Kings, the plot centers around the importance of inheriting and reclaiming the fishing grounds, passing down to next generation.
In The Fisher King, greed caused overfishing, which resulted in loss of income and turf wars with nearby watermen over fishing territory. In The Lobster Kings, greed caused overfishing, which resulted in loss of income and turf war with neighboring lobstermen over fishing territory.
In The Fisher King, two brothers left the island 20 years earlier for college and return while a third remained behind to work the bay with father. In The Lobster Kings, two sisters left the island 20 years earlier for college and return while a third returned to work the waters with father.
In The Fisher King, one son wants to inherit the fishery to carry on ancestral tradition and family name while two siblings do not. In The Lobster Kings, one daughter wants to inherit fishery to carry on ancestral tradition and family name while two siblings do not.
In The Fisher King, the conflicting goals of watermen, government, big business, and environmental activists divide the community. In The Lobster Kings, the conflicting goals of lobstermen, government, and big business divide the community.
In The Fisher King, daughter Gail’s farm father raised her as a boy; she is a tall, strong, feisty, 35-year-old character who struggles with father and father-in-law while seeking to prove herself physically capable of manual labor. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia’s lobsterman father raised her as a boy; she is a tall, strong, feisty, 35-year-old character who struggles with father while seeking to prove herself physically capable of manual labor.
In The Fisher King, daughter-in-law Gail handles bookkeeping for the family business. In The Lobster Kings, daughter Cordelia handles bookkeeping for the family business.
In The Fisher King, younger brother Wes is dreamy, unsuited to farming. In The Lobster Kings, younger brother Scotty is dreamy, unsuited to fishing.
In The Fisher King, youngest sons Wes and Sonny are presumed family business heirs. In The Lobster Kings, youngest son Scotty is presumed family business heir.
In The Fisher King, daughter Gail is jealous of younger brother Wes’s favored position, competes with him, he dies suddenly in farming accident due to father’s neglect; guilt-stricken, she blames self for her role in his death. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia is jealous of younger brother Scotty’s favored position, competes with him, he dies suddenly in fishing accident due to father’s neglect; guilt-stricken, she blames self for her role in his death.
In The Fisher King, rivalry among three brothers and with patriarch father. In The Lobster Kings, rivalry among three sisters and with patriarch father.
In The Fisher King, father and father-in-law are obstacles to daughter Gail and son Sonny achieving independence and maturity. In The Lobster Kings, father is obstacle to daughter Cordelia achieving independence and maturity.
In The Fisher King, Gail and husband Sonny harmoniously work the bay together on boat. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia and lover Kenny harmoniously work the water together together on boat.
In The Fisher King, patriarch sent children to college on mainland. In The Lobster Kings, patriarch sent children to college on mainland.
In The Fisher King, daughter-in-law Gail and Sonny move into house with parents. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia moves into house with father.
In The Fisher King, tourists overrun island, wander across lawns; locals complain wealthy tourists view island as tourist attraction. In The Lobster Kings, tourists overrun island, wander across lawns; locals complain wealthy tourists view island as tourist attraction.
In The Fisher King, patriarch becomes ill but resists doctors, dies. In The Lobster Kings, patriarch becomes ill but resists doctors, dies.
In The Fisher King, three deaths occur, including younger brother and patriarch. In The Lobster Kings, three deaths occur, including younger brother and patriarch.
In The Fisher King, childless Gail becomes pregnant with illegitimate son at end. In The Lobster Kings, childless Cordelia becomes pregnant with illegitimate child at end.
In The Fisher King, the love interests are passive male characters (Sonny, Don, Peter). In The Lobster Kings, the love interests are passive male characters (Tucker, Kenny).
In The Fisher King, waterman Sonny lacks ambition to be more than a waterman. In The Lobster Kings, sternman Kenny lacks ambition to be more than a lobsterman.
The themes are identical: In The Fisher King, identity strongly tied to being watermen; characters are trapped by circumstances of their own making but beyond their control; unresolved guilt over younger brother’s death determines character’s actions; importance of inheriting and passing onto next generation fishing grounds, family business, genes, vanishing way of life, a future. In The Lobster Kings, identity strongly tied to being lobstermen; characters are trapped by circumstances of their own making but beyond their control; unresolved guilt over younger brother’s death determines protagonist’s actions; importance of inheriting and passing onto next generation fishing grounds, family business, genes, vanishing way of life, a future.
The denouements are identical: The Fisher King ends ambiguously b/c neither big business, environmentalists, nor islanders win; Gail comes to terms with her guilt and moves on; patriarch dies; Gail gives birth to illegitimate son; the suggestion is Sonny will inherit fishing territory in the future. The Lobster Kings, ends ambiguously b/c neither meth-dealing nearby lobstermen nor islanders win; Cordelia comes to terms with her guilt and moves on; patriarch dies; she gives birth to illegitimate son; she inherits lobster territory.
Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Have Plot and Themes Similarities to THE FISHER KING?
There are eight main elements that comprise the “heart” on which The Fisher King turns, and The Lobster Kings takes five of them:
1. Overfishing—Fishermen’s greed caused them to overfish watershed, putting themselves out of work; turf wars with other fishermen
2. Work—The importance of work to identity; plan to turn fishery into business; women are marginalized in men’s world of physical labor & must prove themselves
3. Setting—The importance of place, specifically island & historical connection to it, to identity
4. Inheritance—The importance of inheriting & passing on: fishing grounds, family business, family name, genes, vanishing way of life
5. Illegitimacy—Main female character has affair & illegitimate pregnancy to pass on family name, family business, genes, vanishing way of life.
Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Have Line-by-Line Similarities to THE FISHER KING?
Title—The Lobster Kings NEARLY IDENTICAL TO Title—The Fisher King
2—Cordelia Kings STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 10—Gail Kingsley
9—Setting: Loosewood Island SIMILAR TO 5— Trappe Island
9—We’re named the Kings, and we’re the closest thing to royalty on Loosewood Island. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 122—Randolph Kingsley was familiarly known by his last name—King for short. In his case, it was particularly appropriate. Everything about him from his appearance to his temperament had a regal, stately quality.
26—I always wished I was out on the water with Daddy instead of stuck inside the house. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 93—I was going to be stuck on this farm, in this house, for the rest of my life 134—me, apart and alone, stuck on land, and Sonny off to sea with his father 173—King bumped me off the boat and exiled me to the shed 244—I was thrown off the boat and exiled to the crab shed 282—he squeezed me off the boat and exiled me to this shed.
33—The bulk of the tourists...come here during the summers...Islanders have grown used to seeing tourists stumbling across our lawns...who think that buying into the island means that they’ve bought the island. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 211—A few years back tour boats would dock at the public pier and discharge boatloads of nosy tourists who wandered through our streets and across our lawns, trampling rose bushes and bringing down clotheslines 259—“Whatever happened to the idea of buying up all the lots and turning the whole island into a historical theme park like Williamsburg?”
33—Those other kind of summer tourists, the wealthy ones, can be a bit much sometimes, thinking that Loosewood Island’s a sort of fishing theme park. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 211—as if our community were a sort of staged re-enactment of the past 259—“Whatever happened to the idea of buying up all the lots and turning the whole island into a historical theme park like Williamsburg?” 438—their plan to turn the island into an historical theme park.
39-40—What I cared about was...that it was just me and Scotty doing the real work. I wanted to show Daddy that I belonged on the Queen Jane...Scotty and I were working together to lift a baited trap and get it over the rail, but mostly it was me...I’d like to believe that I told him he should...just take a break, because I was trying to be thoughtful. But even at the time I knew it wasn’t the truth I knew that I wanted him to go sit down so that Daddy would see that he was weak, that he wasn’t meant for the water...there was a part of me that was also happy that I was the one Daddy had seen working. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 86—Now for the first time he swam into our father’s consciousness much as I had the summer before. But whereas I’d received a grudging welcome, my brother received a hearty one...to 90—leaving me alone in the kitchen 85—He was still asthmatic and underweight...His shoulder blades no longer stuck out sharply like bird’s wings but broadened with muscle. He had grown from a skinny, sickly kid.
43—Daddy’s made a few concessions to the times: the hydraulic hauler that his father did without, a citizens band and even a tape deck...He hasn’t bothered with a depth finder or LORAN or GPS or most of the other things that the younger men and I are kitting out our boats with. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 199—“We’re fishing the same as we always did.” “What about your hydraulic lift? Did Grandpa have that?...And your electronic winch? How about your GPS navigation systems? Depth-sounder?” “The point is you invested in all that high-tech equipment” 265—the bank of six color monitors, each with a different instrument, a GPS, SAT-NAV, VHF, Doppler radar, depth-finder, auto-pilot 314—and all the winches and pulleys are hydraulic 266—I examined the hydraulic winches and push-button electronic gear, then went below and peered over shoulders as they tinkered with the pricey electronics 172—sink our profits into new equipment or repairs.
44-45—It wasn’t just that Daddy wanted Scotty to do it, but that he didn’t want me to do it...I spent as much time on the Queen Jane as I could. I could haul a trap, empty it, and rebait it fast enough that I was more of a help than a nuisance, and Daddy never said anything about me being just a girl...I belonged out on the water...No matter how often it happened, no matter how many times Daddy called Scotty over to do something I could have done blindfolded in half the time, it still felt like a betrayal. Why couldn’t Daddy see that only one of us was suited to the sea? SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 84—But suddenly I couldn’t do anything right. If he’d failed to praise me the year before, I nevertheless read approval in his silence 89—“Is turning into a girl turning you into an idiot?” 91— He eased me off the farm quietly. There was simply less and less for me to do 130—I emptied them over the washrail, re-baited, and tossed them back overboard 151—it’s now clear to me that my father squeezed me off the farm because he couldn’t reconcile the fact that a woman—any woman, even his daughter—could keep up with him, at the time I felt I was being punished 281—“he squeezed me off the boat and exiled me to this shed.” 72—sling together a dozen sailor’s knots blindfolded.
45—But Daddy never seemed able to see what I could see so clearly about Scotty, which was that my brother wasn’t made for the ocean. Scotty tried, he really did, but only when Daddy was looking...When we were on board and Daddy called him over, Scotty scrambled like a puppy because he didn’t want to disappoint Daddy, but the truth was that Scotty didn’t want any of it for himself. Left to his own devices, Scotty would have been just as happy to be playing football with his friends or to be back at the house with Momma. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 30—As a young man, his tendency to daydream was at odds with the often brutal pace of planting, harvesting, haying—and with his father’s dogged determination to make a farmer out of him 111—The puppyish, eager-to-please demeanor that had characterized his relationship with our father...He had adopted Dad’s mannerisms, his inflections, even his emotions 46—he had a sunny, sweet disposition. He was always an imaginative kid, given to daydreaming and drawing, off in his own little world.
45-47—And I didn’t say anything when I saw that Scotty had only tied a line to one of the two traps...I didn’t offer to help because I knew he would never live up to the name that he carried with him, that he wasn’t deserving of it in the same way that I was. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 86—As usual I was designated to show him the ropes...he still couldn’t shift without grinding them together and stalling...He begged me not to tell Dad...But another part of me wondered if I wasn’t measuring his ability through the filter of my own jealousy.
50-52—“Scotty’s dead. Scotty’s dead.” He was dead. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 126—He [Wes] had fallen asleep at the wheel of the combine [and died].
61-62—“I should have taken care of the traps myself or helped Scotty out. I should have kept Second away from Scotty. I should have kept an eye on him, kept the throttle down until he was clear of the ropes. It was my fault, Cordelia.” SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 126—he must have been so riddled with guilt he would have agreed to anything, for although he was never able to admit it—even, especially, to himself, I suspect—he had been the cause of Wes’s death.
61—I thought he was going to be the heir to these waters, the next generation of the Kings men to work as a fisherman, but no. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 80—The implicit promise was that Sonny...stood to inherit...I knew Sonny had been banking on it all along...King had inherited the fishing business from his daddy, who’d inherited it from his daddy going back as far as anyone could remember 237—”I wanted to believe they came back to take over the family business. After all, they stand to inherit it one day” 248—He wanted his future back...the one he stood to inherit 334—a tenacious desire to claim his inheritance 377—robbed his son of his rightful inheritance...and had left him bereft of a future.
62—I had already pointed at myself, already wondered if my mistake had been what pushed Scotty past the point of reclamation...To have a father like that, and then to have him say it was my fault...that Scotty died? No matter that Daddy said he was sorry, that he was wrong, because I knew the truth: my father didn’t make mistakes. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 87—And because I had a guilty sense of having fallen down on the job with Wes, I took it [father’s blame] 128—I chastised myself that despite my abject misery I should have stayed on the farm, should have tried harder to break through to him, to the real Wes underneath the affected masculine posturing. As the oldest, the one on the front lines, I knew all too well the annihilating power of our father’s bravado, how it could snuff out a spirit—or a life. But like a coward I’d fled at the first opportunity and left him alone and defenseless. For years, I couldn’t bear even to think about it, much less admit to myself the hand I’d played in his death.
74—The water was given to the Kings...Burns is going to have to get his men out of our waters 87—There were rumors that James Harbor lobstermen were planning to make a push for our waters again. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 148—[The bay] was his heritage from his father and the generations of watermen who preceded him. Likely, he thought he had a God-given right to it 159-60—turf wars with Virginia watermen 97—he was going to try to poach my fishing grounds. 160—They endured poaching and severed crabpot lines.
80—“So why did you come back to the island?...Because you couldn’t do anything else. Because of the sea.” STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 13—“Fishing is all I’ve ever done, all I know how to do,” “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t do anything else.”
81—I could never fully imagine myself as being anywhere other than Loosewood Island and working on a boat...the sea just pulls at me and will never let me go...and once you’ve had a taste of the ocean—if you’re true child of the ocean—nothing can keep you away. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 198—“When a man’s got salt water in his blood” 214—“Once a waterman, always a waterman. The bay is in your blood. Why, none of us can escape it.” 100—He loved the bay, it was in his blood
87—The fact was, generations of overfishing in their waters had taken their toll. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 200—“they’ll be less likely to overfish it” 227—“It’s the only way to save the bay from overfishing!” 341—In the same way that watermen had overfished 344—“We overcapitalized. We overfished”
88-89—“You’ll be going to the doctor’s tomorrow.” He grumbled and tried to weasel out of it. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 235— King eschewed doctors 352—“The last time he saw a doctor was the day he was born... It’s a point of pride with him.” “He’s not a young man anymore...Maybe it’s time he did.” “Never happen” 381—But he continued to maintain that there was nothing wrong with him and refused to see a doctor despite urging from Regina and Sonny.
92—I was struck by the way Kenny moved...he came toward me with his knees tilted out, the sway you get from spending years on the ocean...Each step Kenny took was solid, his hips open, his boots ticking against the wood of the dock STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 6—Unlike other watermen, who carry their weight in their knees and rock slightly on bowlegs, Sonny’s center of gravity was in his hips, which rotated in a slow, rhythmic, wave-like rolling motion with each step.
93—He had no aspirations to do anything more than be a sternman...That lack of ambition...despite my attesting to Kenny’s work ethic. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 112—“That’s the thing about Sonny. No ambition. He’ll never leave.” 404—My concern is that it will destroy his pride in his work and eventually his work ethic 405—watermen whose lax ‘work ethic’
95, 103—95—and then...when Tucker and Rena moved to the island 103—Carly: “I’m moving back to the island.” SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 193—[brothers Don & Peter return to Trappe island]
96—But more than anything, what I missed was the regularity of having him with me out on the Kings’ Ransom, the intimacy of the two of us out on the water, the rhythm of working together. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 6—we had always worked together...on the bay...We had naturally slipped back into our old familiar roles without a hitch 267—maybe it was because it was the last time Sonny and I would ever work side-by-side 130—Side-by-side we ran traplines, him gaffing crab pots while I emptied them over the washrail, re-baited, and tossed them back overboard. In oyster season I winched the scrape while he hoisted it over the transom...it wasn’t size or strength that qualified me to work alongside him. It just never would have occurred to us not to. We were partners in work and in life. Now, as Sonny readied the traplines I transferred handfuls of salted chum from a big barrel to the bait box behind the rotor to bait the hooks.
97—she handled the books for Daddy’s rentals and business concerns, for the Queen Jane and the Kings’ Ransom, and did all of our personal taxes, too. All that Rena asked from me was to handle my own day-to-day records, expenses, gas, daily catches, and she figured out the rest. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 26— “Gail can keep the books, of course” 217—I was doing the books 218—I entered all the data into the debit and credit columns, divided the profits by the total number of bushels of soft and hard shells, fish and eels we sold at the market rate, subtracted expenditures for bait, nets, hooks, traps lost, and hardware store bills for cage wire diesel fuel, docking fees, and electricity to power the shed pumps, icebox, lights loan interest, membership dues, and taxes.
107—Petey told me SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 167—Don was called Donnie, Peter, Petey.
110—He had...the fish shop, the warehouse...two buildings on Main Street that held six different businesses that operated year-round—and his own home. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 18—[King] the most prosperous waterman on the island 98—King Crab had dominated with operations on every front from catching to canning. King had started out with a string of ice-houses and built them into picking plants, which expanded to include processing factories up and down the Eastern Shore. 133—He threw his arms wide to encompass not only the factory and marina 438—But there was no debt on the house.
110—He didn’t have any loans on them, and that’s the way he liked it. He was old-fashioned about being in debt and always said if you dealt in cash. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 38—my grandfather owned the farm free and clear. He didn’t believe in taking on debt 77—“We’ve always paid cash.”
111—he bought before the tourists hijacked the island...He was the king of the harbor just as his father had been the king of the harbor, and his grandfather before. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 211—Tourists descended on the area from D.C. and Baltimore and as far away as Philadelphia to...the real estate agents busy showing waterfront timeshares and vacation homes...tour boats would dock at the public pier and discharge boatloads of nosy tourists 80—King had inherited the fishing business from his daddy, who’d inherited it from his daddy going back as far as anyone could remember 98—Kingston, the only town to speak of 133—He threw his arms wide to encompass not only the factory and marina, but the Cove, the Reach, even the Bay, as though it were his 199—“We’re fishing the same as we always did,” King said. “The same as my daddy and his daddy before him.” 237—“My granddaddy passed his boat down to my daddy who fished the same way. And my daddy handed his boat down to me and I did the same” 148—It was his heritage from his father and the generations of watermen who preceded him.
111—We made decisions as a group—to shorten the season, to fish less traps, to stop letting cruise ships dock in the harbor SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 231—“You’re only strong when you work together, right? This association is proof of that.” 301—King routinely introduced each issue before the association, opened the floor for debate and, after everyone had his say, put it to a vote 211—A few years back tour boats would dock at the public pier and discharge boatloads of nosy tourists...But just as we were drawing up a petition to prohibit trespassing.
112—He immediately upped the the offer price, buying the lobsters for fifty cents a pound more than the going rate. Mr. Taber ran smack into the problem of not being able to demand a higher rate from the wholesalers in Boston and New York who used to buy from our dealer. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 225—“Not if we build the cost of the extra time and equipment into the market price...If we charge, say, $1.25 for Number One Jimmies instead of a dollar.” 263—Unable to meet their suppliers’ demand for crabmeat, they’d tried to tap into the Dungeness crab markets in New England and Washington state, but the local buyers had them sewn up long ago 280—“If each waterman brought a dozen Jimmies to market per day—one-quarter of the recent catch—demand would have outpaced supply at a rate of four-to-one per week, which means they’d now be selling for about $1.25 each. That’s a twenty-five percent increase...Now they’re back where they began, lucky to get seventy-five cents.”
115—The border dispute’s been going on as long as Loosewood Island’s had people on it: before the U.S. and Canada were the U.S. and Canada, it was France and Britain fighting over possession of the island... Loosewood Island is a kind of borderland, a no-man’s-land. IDENTICAL TO 159-60—turf wars with Virginia watermen 129—It was like...crossing a border into another country 103—“Way back before the states had to choose up sides, the island was a free territory. It didn’t belong to Maryland or Virginia” 147—The water on the other side of it belongs to Virginia, and up on the Choptank in Delaware…” 442—the island—which had been home...reaching back over a century...to Confederate soldiers defecting to join the Union and, before them, to...the Continental Army 95—During the day, the island was utterly silent, empty, a no-man’s land.
126—commuting to a job at a processing plant on the mainland. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 385—got a job on the night shift at a poultry processing plant in Crisfield.
133—For islanders, however, the reverse is also true. We go to cities for the things that we don’t have here—shopping, restaurants, theaters. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 98—There was no police force, no courthouse, no jail, no post office, no banks...It was remarkable in its absence of restaurants, fast food chains, bars, hotels, drugstores, or supermarkets.
133-134—the prospect of living full-time in a big city makes me shudder...There are some of the islanders who...are overwhelmed by the cities...They shut down, withdraw to their hotel rooms, and come back to the island swearing they’ll never go to the city again. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 14—I remembered how much he loathed big cities 58—I had the feeling we’d traveled an enormous distance, across hundreds of miles from the flat, quiet marshland to this city of big granite buildings and noisy, crowded streets full of strangers 177—“This city has me all tuned around” to 181—“Where are we?” to 183—“And I say we are [lost].”
143—There was a spell when Daddy was talking like it would be Tucker taking over the business instead of me...it was enough to end the talk of Tucker being slipped in as the heir to the Kings. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 80—King had inherited the fishing business from his daddy, who’d inherited it from his daddy going back as far as anyone could remember 237—they came back to take over the family business. After all, they stand to inherit it one day.”...And the bills are their way of doing that, of protecting their inheritance” 334—I had always viewed his inability to separate from King and the island as dependence or fear of change or a tenacious desire to claim his inheritance.
147—Even getting him to go to Dr. Jamison...was always a struggle. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 236—King eschewed doctors 352—“The last time he saw a doctor was the day he was born...It’s a point of pride with him.” “He’s not a young man anymore...“Maybe it’s time he did.” “Never happen...He’ll keel over first” 354—I didn’t delude myself for a minute that I could convince him to see a doctor 381—But he continued to maintain that there was nothing wrong with him and refused to see a doctor despite urging from Regina and Sonny.
165—There were even a couple of times when Daddy said that Tucker worked the water like he was a Kings. It brought back some of the bullshit from when I was a kid and Daddy couldn’t understand that I was suited for the water in a way that Scotty wasn’t...but in seeing Tucker that way, it made me invisible. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 84—I’d had the sense growing up that my father never really focused on me, that I was somehow peripheral to his vision. 89—I’ve always been a girl, I wanted to say, you just never noticed.
165—It goes to show you that even on an island this small, it is still possible to keep some secrets. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 353— I couldn’t risk my secret getting out 371—Regardless of the secrets that may have found their way to her and the community my loyalty to Sonny kept me from sharing more of them 370—“There are no secrets on islands,” she said, enigmatically...Now I discovered that others had been privy to our secrets all along.
174—but it meant I was going to have to move in with Daddy. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 9—“I don’t think moving in with your parents is a good idea.”
184—The Kings fished like we owned the ocean. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 133—He threw his arms wide to encompass not only the factory and marina, but the Cove, the Reach, even the Bay, as though it were his 148—[the bay] was his heritage from his father and the generations of watermen who preceded him. Likely, he thought he had a God-given right to it 149—“Dad probably thinks it [bay] belongs to him since he’s been working it all his life.”
188-189—There just weren’t that many roads to speak of on Loosewood Island. Probably a third of the islanders didn’t even own trucks or cars—or if they did they kept them with relatives on the mainland—and the roads we did have were circuitous and winding. To get from one place to another, it was quicker to walk down the beaten paths of dirt and rock, or maintained paths of gravel or crushed shells. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 98—there were few cars, no traffic lights, no gas stations, not even any street signs. The roads had been formed by well-trod footpaths until they were simply part of the landscape and people found their way around using landmarks that were just as often part of the terrain as the buildings. People got around on foot...but mostly they got from here to there by paddling small skiffs through the many winding inland streams 17—I dragged it down the chalky oyster shell walkway 237—the oyster shell path 105—King kept a truck parked at Arster Point...I piled into the back of a flatbed truck at Arster Point.
188-189—Daddy’s pickup, which mean that his traps went on first, and then after he’d finished dropping all of his at the docks it would be my turn...When I needed a truck on the island...I borrowed Daddy’s. He kept a second truck on the Mainland, parked...near the docks in James Harbor. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 267-268—We had just finished offloading the day’s catch into Ewell’s truck 171—We had to borrow King’s truck 105—King kept a truck parked at Arster Point.
211—Kenny and I had more or less fallen into our old routines in the way we moved in rhythm, keeping the talk going, all the while pulling traps, baiting, measuring, banding, dropping, motoring, and working the waters. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 6—we had always worked together...on the bay...We had naturally slipped back into our old familiar roles without a hitch 130—Wordlessly, we moved aft to the stern and took up our usual starboard positions. Side-by-side we ran traplines, him gaffing crab pots while I emptied them over the washrail, re-baited, and tossed them back overboard. In oyster season I winched the scrape while he hoisted it over the transom...it wasn’t size or strength that qualified me to work alongside him. It just never would have occurred to us not to. We were partners in work and in life. Now, as Sonny readied the traplines I transferred handfuls of salted chum from a big barrel to the bait box behind the rotor to bait the hooks.
301—There on the glass shelf: prescription bottles...The bottles were mostly full, and I picked one up to look at it...I touched a couple of the other bottles...I didn’t recognize any of the names...I just closed the cabinet. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 235—I opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged among the canisters and jars for something to knock me out...it was Regina’s name I saw on the labels of opaque brown bottles of hormones. But not on any sleeping pills.
Alexi Zentner Reviews
Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Infringe the Copyright of THE FISHER KING by Hayley Kelsey? Read on to Decide for Yourself (see more at https://medium.com/@hayleykelseyauthor)
Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Have Striking and Substantial Similarities to THE FISHER KING?
Nearly identical title to The Fisher King: The Lobster Kings.
Nearly identical main characters’ surnames: In The Fisher King: Kingsley. In The Lobster Kings, Kings.
Strikingly similar use of literary allusions: The Fisher King is based on Sir Percival’s quest for the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend, alludes to the fisher king. The Lobster Kings is based on King Lear, alludes to royalty.
Strikingly similar use of literary allusions in main characters’ names and roles: In The Fisher King, Patriarch King’s name and character are symbolic of his role as the fisher king; Gail’s name and character are symbolic of her role as the grail knight; a main character is named Petey. In The Lobster Kings, Patriarch Woody Kings’s character is symbolic of his role as King Lear; daughter Cordelia’s name and character are symbolic of her role in the play; a minor character is named Petey (note identical spelling).
Similar setting: In The Fisher King: small village on Chesapeake Bay island. In The Lobster Kings: small village on Maine island.
The Fisher King is told from the first-person point-of-view of the female protagonist Gail. The Lobster Kings is told from the first-person point-of-view of the female protagonist Cordelia.
In The Fisher King, generations of the Kingsley family have lived and fished on the island for over 200 years. In The Lobster Kings, generations of Kings family have lived and lobster fished for 300 years.
In The Fisher King, traditional commercial fishing is threatened by overfishing, big business, technology, global commerce. In The Lobster Kings, traditional commercial fishing threatened by overfishing, big business, meth-dealing lobstermen, technology, global commerce.
In The Fisher King, Patriarch King is tyrannical, controlling, irascible family patriarch and president of the Watermen’s Association. In The Lobster Kings, Patriarch Woody Kings is tyrannical, controlling, irascible family patriarch and president of the Co-op.
In The Fisher King, Patriarch King espouses “family first.” In The Lobster Kings, patriarch Woody Kings espouses “family first.”
In The Fisher King, Patriarch King welcomes big business plan to turn fishery into profitable business but are wary of change to traditional fishing from it and from global economy. In The Lobster Kings, Patriarch Woody Kings welcomes big business plan to turn fishery into profitable business but is wary of change to traditional fishing from it and from global economy.
In The Fisher King, the plot centers around the importance of inheriting and restoring the fishing grounds, passing down to next generation. In The Lobster Kings, the plot centers around the importance of inheriting and reclaiming the fishing grounds, passing down to next generation.
In The Fisher King, greed caused overfishing, which resulted in loss of income and turf wars with nearby watermen over fishing territory. In The Lobster Kings, greed caused overfishing, which resulted in loss of income and turf war with neighboring lobstermen over fishing territory.
In The Fisher King, two brothers left the island 20 years earlier for college and return while a third remained behind to work the bay with father. In The Lobster Kings, two sisters left the island 20 years earlier for college and return while a third returned to work the waters with father.
In The Fisher King, one son wants to inherit the fishery to carry on ancestral tradition and family name while two siblings do not. In The Lobster Kings, one daughter wants to inherit fishery to carry on ancestral tradition and family name while two siblings do not.
In The Fisher King, the conflicting goals of watermen, government, big business, and environmental activists divide the community. In The Lobster Kings, the conflicting goals of lobstermen, government, and big business divide the community.
In The Fisher King, daughter Gail’s farm father raised her as a boy; she is a tall, strong, feisty, 35-year-old character who struggles with father and father-in-law while seeking to prove herself physically capable of manual labor. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia’s lobsterman father raised her as a boy; she is a tall, strong, feisty, 35-year-old character who struggles with father while seeking to prove herself physically capable of manual labor.
In The Fisher King, daughter-in-law Gail handles bookkeeping for the family business. In The Lobster Kings, daughter Cordelia handles bookkeeping for the family business.
In The Fisher King, younger brother Wes is dreamy, unsuited to farming. In The Lobster Kings, younger brother Scotty is dreamy, unsuited to fishing.
In The Fisher King, youngest sons Wes and Sonny are presumed family business heirs. In The Lobster Kings, youngest son Scotty is presumed family business heir.
In The Fisher King, daughter Gail is jealous of younger brother Wes’s favored position, competes with him, he dies suddenly in farming accident due to father’s neglect; guilt-stricken, she blames self for her role in his death. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia is jealous of younger brother Scotty’s favored position, competes with him, he dies suddenly in fishing accident due to father’s neglect; guilt-stricken, she blames self for her role in his death.
In The Fisher King, rivalry among three brothers and with patriarch father. In The Lobster Kings, rivalry among three sisters and with patriarch father.
In The Fisher King, father and father-in-law are obstacles to daughter Gail and son Sonny achieving independence and maturity. In The Lobster Kings, father is obstacle to daughter Cordelia achieving independence and maturity.
In The Fisher King, Gail and husband Sonny harmoniously work the bay together on boat. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia and lover Kenny harmoniously work the water together together on boat.
In The Fisher King, patriarch sent children to college on mainland. In The Lobster Kings, patriarch sent children to college on mainland.
In The Fisher King, daughter-in-law Gail and Sonny move into house with parents. In The Lobster Kings, Cordelia moves into house with father.
In The Fisher King, tourists overrun island, wander across lawns; locals complain wealthy tourists view island as tourist attraction. In The Lobster Kings, tourists overrun island, wander across lawns; locals complain wealthy tourists view island as tourist attraction.
In The Fisher King, patriarch becomes ill but resists doctors, dies. In The Lobster Kings, patriarch becomes ill but resists doctors, dies.
In The Fisher King, three deaths occur, including younger brother and patriarch. In The Lobster Kings, three deaths occur, including younger brother and patriarch.
In The Fisher King, childless Gail becomes pregnant with illegitimate son at end. In The Lobster Kings, childless Cordelia becomes pregnant with illegitimate child at end.
In The Fisher King, the love interests are passive male characters (Sonny, Don, Peter). In The Lobster Kings, the love interests are passive male characters (Tucker, Kenny).
In The Fisher King, waterman Sonny lacks ambition to be more than a waterman. In The Lobster Kings, sternman Kenny lacks ambition to be more than a lobsterman.
The themes are identical: In The Fisher King, identity strongly tied to being watermen; characters are trapped by circumstances of their own making but beyond their control; unresolved guilt over younger brother’s death determines character’s actions; importance of inheriting and passing onto next generation fishing grounds, family business, genes, vanishing way of life, a future. In The Lobster Kings, identity strongly tied to being lobstermen; characters are trapped by circumstances of their own making but beyond their control; unresolved guilt over younger brother’s death determines protagonist’s actions; importance of inheriting and passing onto next generation fishing grounds, family business, genes, vanishing way of life, a future.
The denouements are identical: The Fisher King ends ambiguously b/c neither big business, environmentalists, nor islanders win; Gail comes to terms with her guilt and moves on; patriarch dies; Gail gives birth to illegitimate son; the suggestion is Sonny will inherit fishing territory in the future. The Lobster Kings, ends ambiguously b/c neither meth-dealing nearby lobstermen nor islanders win; Cordelia comes to terms with her guilt and moves on; patriarch dies; she gives birth to illegitimate son; she inherits lobster territory.
Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Have Plot and Themes Similarities to THE FISHER KING?
There are eight main elements that comprise the “heart” on which The Fisher King turns, and The Lobster Kings takes five of them:
1. Overfishing—Fishermen’s greed caused them to overfish watershed, putting themselves out of work; turf wars with other fishermen
2. Work—The importance of work to identity; plan to turn fishery into business; women are marginalized in men’s world of physical labor & must prove themselves
3. Setting—The importance of place, specifically island & historical connection to it, to identity
4. Inheritance—The importance of inheriting & passing on: fishing grounds, family business, family name, genes, vanishing way of life
5. Illegitimacy—Main female character has affair & illegitimate pregnancy to pass on family name, family business, genes, vanishing way of life.
Does THE LOBSTER KINGS Have Line-by-Line Similarities to THE FISHER KING?
Title—The Lobster Kings NEARLY IDENTICAL TO Title—The Fisher King
2—Cordelia Kings STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 10—Gail Kingsley
9—Setting: Loosewood Island SIMILAR TO 5— Trappe Island
9—We’re named the Kings, and we’re the closest thing to royalty on Loosewood Island. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 122—Randolph Kingsley was familiarly known by his last name—King for short. In his case, it was particularly appropriate. Everything about him from his appearance to his temperament had a regal, stately quality.
26—I always wished I was out on the water with Daddy instead of stuck inside the house. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 93—I was going to be stuck on this farm, in this house, for the rest of my life 134—me, apart and alone, stuck on land, and Sonny off to sea with his father 173—King bumped me off the boat and exiled me to the shed 244—I was thrown off the boat and exiled to the crab shed 282—he squeezed me off the boat and exiled me to this shed.
33—The bulk of the tourists...come here during the summers...Islanders have grown used to seeing tourists stumbling across our lawns...who think that buying into the island means that they’ve bought the island. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 211—A few years back tour boats would dock at the public pier and discharge boatloads of nosy tourists who wandered through our streets and across our lawns, trampling rose bushes and bringing down clotheslines 259—“Whatever happened to the idea of buying up all the lots and turning the whole island into a historical theme park like Williamsburg?”
33—Those other kind of summer tourists, the wealthy ones, can be a bit much sometimes, thinking that Loosewood Island’s a sort of fishing theme park. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 211—as if our community were a sort of staged re-enactment of the past 259—“Whatever happened to the idea of buying up all the lots and turning the whole island into a historical theme park like Williamsburg?” 438—their plan to turn the island into an historical theme park.
39-40—What I cared about was...that it was just me and Scotty doing the real work. I wanted to show Daddy that I belonged on the Queen Jane...Scotty and I were working together to lift a baited trap and get it over the rail, but mostly it was me...I’d like to believe that I told him he should...just take a break, because I was trying to be thoughtful. But even at the time I knew it wasn’t the truth I knew that I wanted him to go sit down so that Daddy would see that he was weak, that he wasn’t meant for the water...there was a part of me that was also happy that I was the one Daddy had seen working. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 86—Now for the first time he swam into our father’s consciousness much as I had the summer before. But whereas I’d received a grudging welcome, my brother received a hearty one...to 90—leaving me alone in the kitchen 85—He was still asthmatic and underweight...His shoulder blades no longer stuck out sharply like bird’s wings but broadened with muscle. He had grown from a skinny, sickly kid.
43—Daddy’s made a few concessions to the times: the hydraulic hauler that his father did without, a citizens band and even a tape deck...He hasn’t bothered with a depth finder or LORAN or GPS or most of the other things that the younger men and I are kitting out our boats with. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 199—“We’re fishing the same as we always did.” “What about your hydraulic lift? Did Grandpa have that?...And your electronic winch? How about your GPS navigation systems? Depth-sounder?” “The point is you invested in all that high-tech equipment” 265—the bank of six color monitors, each with a different instrument, a GPS, SAT-NAV, VHF, Doppler radar, depth-finder, auto-pilot 314—and all the winches and pulleys are hydraulic 266—I examined the hydraulic winches and push-button electronic gear, then went below and peered over shoulders as they tinkered with the pricey electronics 172—sink our profits into new equipment or repairs.
44-45—It wasn’t just that Daddy wanted Scotty to do it, but that he didn’t want me to do it...I spent as much time on the Queen Jane as I could. I could haul a trap, empty it, and rebait it fast enough that I was more of a help than a nuisance, and Daddy never said anything about me being just a girl...I belonged out on the water...No matter how often it happened, no matter how many times Daddy called Scotty over to do something I could have done blindfolded in half the time, it still felt like a betrayal. Why couldn’t Daddy see that only one of us was suited to the sea? SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 84—But suddenly I couldn’t do anything right. If he’d failed to praise me the year before, I nevertheless read approval in his silence 89—“Is turning into a girl turning you into an idiot?” 91— He eased me off the farm quietly. There was simply less and less for me to do 130—I emptied them over the washrail, re-baited, and tossed them back overboard 151—it’s now clear to me that my father squeezed me off the farm because he couldn’t reconcile the fact that a woman—any woman, even his daughter—could keep up with him, at the time I felt I was being punished 281—“he squeezed me off the boat and exiled me to this shed.” 72—sling together a dozen sailor’s knots blindfolded.
45—But Daddy never seemed able to see what I could see so clearly about Scotty, which was that my brother wasn’t made for the ocean. Scotty tried, he really did, but only when Daddy was looking...When we were on board and Daddy called him over, Scotty scrambled like a puppy because he didn’t want to disappoint Daddy, but the truth was that Scotty didn’t want any of it for himself. Left to his own devices, Scotty would have been just as happy to be playing football with his friends or to be back at the house with Momma. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 30—As a young man, his tendency to daydream was at odds with the often brutal pace of planting, harvesting, haying—and with his father’s dogged determination to make a farmer out of him 111—The puppyish, eager-to-please demeanor that had characterized his relationship with our father...He had adopted Dad’s mannerisms, his inflections, even his emotions 46—he had a sunny, sweet disposition. He was always an imaginative kid, given to daydreaming and drawing, off in his own little world.
45-47—And I didn’t say anything when I saw that Scotty had only tied a line to one of the two traps...I didn’t offer to help because I knew he would never live up to the name that he carried with him, that he wasn’t deserving of it in the same way that I was. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 86—As usual I was designated to show him the ropes...he still couldn’t shift without grinding them together and stalling...He begged me not to tell Dad...But another part of me wondered if I wasn’t measuring his ability through the filter of my own jealousy.
50-52—“Scotty’s dead. Scotty’s dead.” He was dead. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 126—He [Wes] had fallen asleep at the wheel of the combine [and died].
61-62—“I should have taken care of the traps myself or helped Scotty out. I should have kept Second away from Scotty. I should have kept an eye on him, kept the throttle down until he was clear of the ropes. It was my fault, Cordelia.” SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 126—he must have been so riddled with guilt he would have agreed to anything, for although he was never able to admit it—even, especially, to himself, I suspect—he had been the cause of Wes’s death.
61—I thought he was going to be the heir to these waters, the next generation of the Kings men to work as a fisherman, but no. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 80—The implicit promise was that Sonny...stood to inherit...I knew Sonny had been banking on it all along...King had inherited the fishing business from his daddy, who’d inherited it from his daddy going back as far as anyone could remember 237—”I wanted to believe they came back to take over the family business. After all, they stand to inherit it one day” 248—He wanted his future back...the one he stood to inherit 334—a tenacious desire to claim his inheritance 377—robbed his son of his rightful inheritance...and had left him bereft of a future.
62—I had already pointed at myself, already wondered if my mistake had been what pushed Scotty past the point of reclamation...To have a father like that, and then to have him say it was my fault...that Scotty died? No matter that Daddy said he was sorry, that he was wrong, because I knew the truth: my father didn’t make mistakes. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 87—And because I had a guilty sense of having fallen down on the job with Wes, I took it [father’s blame] 128—I chastised myself that despite my abject misery I should have stayed on the farm, should have tried harder to break through to him, to the real Wes underneath the affected masculine posturing. As the oldest, the one on the front lines, I knew all too well the annihilating power of our father’s bravado, how it could snuff out a spirit—or a life. But like a coward I’d fled at the first opportunity and left him alone and defenseless. For years, I couldn’t bear even to think about it, much less admit to myself the hand I’d played in his death.
74—The water was given to the Kings...Burns is going to have to get his men out of our waters 87—There were rumors that James Harbor lobstermen were planning to make a push for our waters again. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 148—[The bay] was his heritage from his father and the generations of watermen who preceded him. Likely, he thought he had a God-given right to it 159-60—turf wars with Virginia watermen 97—he was going to try to poach my fishing grounds. 160—They endured poaching and severed crabpot lines.
80—“So why did you come back to the island?...Because you couldn’t do anything else. Because of the sea.” STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 13—“Fishing is all I’ve ever done, all I know how to do,” “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t do anything else.”
81—I could never fully imagine myself as being anywhere other than Loosewood Island and working on a boat...the sea just pulls at me and will never let me go...and once you’ve had a taste of the ocean—if you’re true child of the ocean—nothing can keep you away. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 198—“When a man’s got salt water in his blood” 214—“Once a waterman, always a waterman. The bay is in your blood. Why, none of us can escape it.” 100—He loved the bay, it was in his blood
87—The fact was, generations of overfishing in their waters had taken their toll. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 200—“they’ll be less likely to overfish it” 227—“It’s the only way to save the bay from overfishing!” 341—In the same way that watermen had overfished 344—“We overcapitalized. We overfished”
88-89—“You’ll be going to the doctor’s tomorrow.” He grumbled and tried to weasel out of it. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 235— King eschewed doctors 352—“The last time he saw a doctor was the day he was born... It’s a point of pride with him.” “He’s not a young man anymore...Maybe it’s time he did.” “Never happen” 381—But he continued to maintain that there was nothing wrong with him and refused to see a doctor despite urging from Regina and Sonny.
92—I was struck by the way Kenny moved...he came toward me with his knees tilted out, the sway you get from spending years on the ocean...Each step Kenny took was solid, his hips open, his boots ticking against the wood of the dock STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 6—Unlike other watermen, who carry their weight in their knees and rock slightly on bowlegs, Sonny’s center of gravity was in his hips, which rotated in a slow, rhythmic, wave-like rolling motion with each step.
93—He had no aspirations to do anything more than be a sternman...That lack of ambition...despite my attesting to Kenny’s work ethic. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 112—“That’s the thing about Sonny. No ambition. He’ll never leave.” 404—My concern is that it will destroy his pride in his work and eventually his work ethic 405—watermen whose lax ‘work ethic’
95, 103—95—and then...when Tucker and Rena moved to the island 103—Carly: “I’m moving back to the island.” SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 193—[brothers Don & Peter return to Trappe island]
96—But more than anything, what I missed was the regularity of having him with me out on the Kings’ Ransom, the intimacy of the two of us out on the water, the rhythm of working together. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 6—we had always worked together...on the bay...We had naturally slipped back into our old familiar roles without a hitch 267—maybe it was because it was the last time Sonny and I would ever work side-by-side 130—Side-by-side we ran traplines, him gaffing crab pots while I emptied them over the washrail, re-baited, and tossed them back overboard. In oyster season I winched the scrape while he hoisted it over the transom...it wasn’t size or strength that qualified me to work alongside him. It just never would have occurred to us not to. We were partners in work and in life. Now, as Sonny readied the traplines I transferred handfuls of salted chum from a big barrel to the bait box behind the rotor to bait the hooks.
97—she handled the books for Daddy’s rentals and business concerns, for the Queen Jane and the Kings’ Ransom, and did all of our personal taxes, too. All that Rena asked from me was to handle my own day-to-day records, expenses, gas, daily catches, and she figured out the rest. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 26— “Gail can keep the books, of course” 217—I was doing the books 218—I entered all the data into the debit and credit columns, divided the profits by the total number of bushels of soft and hard shells, fish and eels we sold at the market rate, subtracted expenditures for bait, nets, hooks, traps lost, and hardware store bills for cage wire diesel fuel, docking fees, and electricity to power the shed pumps, icebox, lights loan interest, membership dues, and taxes.
107—Petey told me SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 167—Don was called Donnie, Peter, Petey.
110—He had...the fish shop, the warehouse...two buildings on Main Street that held six different businesses that operated year-round—and his own home. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 18—[King] the most prosperous waterman on the island 98—King Crab had dominated with operations on every front from catching to canning. King had started out with a string of ice-houses and built them into picking plants, which expanded to include processing factories up and down the Eastern Shore. 133—He threw his arms wide to encompass not only the factory and marina 438—But there was no debt on the house.
110—He didn’t have any loans on them, and that’s the way he liked it. He was old-fashioned about being in debt and always said if you dealt in cash. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 38—my grandfather owned the farm free and clear. He didn’t believe in taking on debt 77—“We’ve always paid cash.”
111—he bought before the tourists hijacked the island...He was the king of the harbor just as his father had been the king of the harbor, and his grandfather before. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 211—Tourists descended on the area from D.C. and Baltimore and as far away as Philadelphia to...the real estate agents busy showing waterfront timeshares and vacation homes...tour boats would dock at the public pier and discharge boatloads of nosy tourists 80—King had inherited the fishing business from his daddy, who’d inherited it from his daddy going back as far as anyone could remember 98—Kingston, the only town to speak of 133—He threw his arms wide to encompass not only the factory and marina, but the Cove, the Reach, even the Bay, as though it were his 199—“We’re fishing the same as we always did,” King said. “The same as my daddy and his daddy before him.” 237—“My granddaddy passed his boat down to my daddy who fished the same way. And my daddy handed his boat down to me and I did the same” 148—It was his heritage from his father and the generations of watermen who preceded him.
111—We made decisions as a group—to shorten the season, to fish less traps, to stop letting cruise ships dock in the harbor SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 231—“You’re only strong when you work together, right? This association is proof of that.” 301—King routinely introduced each issue before the association, opened the floor for debate and, after everyone had his say, put it to a vote 211—A few years back tour boats would dock at the public pier and discharge boatloads of nosy tourists...But just as we were drawing up a petition to prohibit trespassing.
112—He immediately upped the the offer price, buying the lobsters for fifty cents a pound more than the going rate. Mr. Taber ran smack into the problem of not being able to demand a higher rate from the wholesalers in Boston and New York who used to buy from our dealer. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 225—“Not if we build the cost of the extra time and equipment into the market price...If we charge, say, $1.25 for Number One Jimmies instead of a dollar.” 263—Unable to meet their suppliers’ demand for crabmeat, they’d tried to tap into the Dungeness crab markets in New England and Washington state, but the local buyers had them sewn up long ago 280—“If each waterman brought a dozen Jimmies to market per day—one-quarter of the recent catch—demand would have outpaced supply at a rate of four-to-one per week, which means they’d now be selling for about $1.25 each. That’s a twenty-five percent increase...Now they’re back where they began, lucky to get seventy-five cents.”
115—The border dispute’s been going on as long as Loosewood Island’s had people on it: before the U.S. and Canada were the U.S. and Canada, it was France and Britain fighting over possession of the island... Loosewood Island is a kind of borderland, a no-man’s-land. IDENTICAL TO 159-60—turf wars with Virginia watermen 129—It was like...crossing a border into another country 103—“Way back before the states had to choose up sides, the island was a free territory. It didn’t belong to Maryland or Virginia” 147—The water on the other side of it belongs to Virginia, and up on the Choptank in Delaware…” 442—the island—which had been home...reaching back over a century...to Confederate soldiers defecting to join the Union and, before them, to...the Continental Army 95—During the day, the island was utterly silent, empty, a no-man’s land.
126—commuting to a job at a processing plant on the mainland. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 385—got a job on the night shift at a poultry processing plant in Crisfield.
133—For islanders, however, the reverse is also true. We go to cities for the things that we don’t have here—shopping, restaurants, theaters. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 98—There was no police force, no courthouse, no jail, no post office, no banks...It was remarkable in its absence of restaurants, fast food chains, bars, hotels, drugstores, or supermarkets.
133-134—the prospect of living full-time in a big city makes me shudder...There are some of the islanders who...are overwhelmed by the cities...They shut down, withdraw to their hotel rooms, and come back to the island swearing they’ll never go to the city again. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 14—I remembered how much he loathed big cities 58—I had the feeling we’d traveled an enormous distance, across hundreds of miles from the flat, quiet marshland to this city of big granite buildings and noisy, crowded streets full of strangers 177—“This city has me all tuned around” to 181—“Where are we?” to 183—“And I say we are [lost].”
143—There was a spell when Daddy was talking like it would be Tucker taking over the business instead of me...it was enough to end the talk of Tucker being slipped in as the heir to the Kings. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 80—King had inherited the fishing business from his daddy, who’d inherited it from his daddy going back as far as anyone could remember 237—they came back to take over the family business. After all, they stand to inherit it one day.”...And the bills are their way of doing that, of protecting their inheritance” 334—I had always viewed his inability to separate from King and the island as dependence or fear of change or a tenacious desire to claim his inheritance.
147—Even getting him to go to Dr. Jamison...was always a struggle. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 236—King eschewed doctors 352—“The last time he saw a doctor was the day he was born...It’s a point of pride with him.” “He’s not a young man anymore...“Maybe it’s time he did.” “Never happen...He’ll keel over first” 354—I didn’t delude myself for a minute that I could convince him to see a doctor 381—But he continued to maintain that there was nothing wrong with him and refused to see a doctor despite urging from Regina and Sonny.
165—There were even a couple of times when Daddy said that Tucker worked the water like he was a Kings. It brought back some of the bullshit from when I was a kid and Daddy couldn’t understand that I was suited for the water in a way that Scotty wasn’t...but in seeing Tucker that way, it made me invisible. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 84—I’d had the sense growing up that my father never really focused on me, that I was somehow peripheral to his vision. 89—I’ve always been a girl, I wanted to say, you just never noticed.
165—It goes to show you that even on an island this small, it is still possible to keep some secrets. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 353— I couldn’t risk my secret getting out 371—Regardless of the secrets that may have found their way to her and the community my loyalty to Sonny kept me from sharing more of them 370—“There are no secrets on islands,” she said, enigmatically...Now I discovered that others had been privy to our secrets all along.
174—but it meant I was going to have to move in with Daddy. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 9—“I don’t think moving in with your parents is a good idea.”
184—The Kings fished like we owned the ocean. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 133—He threw his arms wide to encompass not only the factory and marina, but the Cove, the Reach, even the Bay, as though it were his 148—[the bay] was his heritage from his father and the generations of watermen who preceded him. Likely, he thought he had a God-given right to it 149—“Dad probably thinks it [bay] belongs to him since he’s been working it all his life.”
188-189—There just weren’t that many roads to speak of on Loosewood Island. Probably a third of the islanders didn’t even own trucks or cars—or if they did they kept them with relatives on the mainland—and the roads we did have were circuitous and winding. To get from one place to another, it was quicker to walk down the beaten paths of dirt and rock, or maintained paths of gravel or crushed shells. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 98—there were few cars, no traffic lights, no gas stations, not even any street signs. The roads had been formed by well-trod footpaths until they were simply part of the landscape and people found their way around using landmarks that were just as often part of the terrain as the buildings. People got around on foot...but mostly they got from here to there by paddling small skiffs through the many winding inland streams 17—I dragged it down the chalky oyster shell walkway 237—the oyster shell path 105—King kept a truck parked at Arster Point...I piled into the back of a flatbed truck at Arster Point.
188-189—Daddy’s pickup, which mean that his traps went on first, and then after he’d finished dropping all of his at the docks it would be my turn...When I needed a truck on the island...I borrowed Daddy’s. He kept a second truck on the Mainland, parked...near the docks in James Harbor. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 267-268—We had just finished offloading the day’s catch into Ewell’s truck 171—We had to borrow King’s truck 105—King kept a truck parked at Arster Point.
211—Kenny and I had more or less fallen into our old routines in the way we moved in rhythm, keeping the talk going, all the while pulling traps, baiting, measuring, banding, dropping, motoring, and working the waters. STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO 6—we had always worked together...on the bay...We had naturally slipped back into our old familiar roles without a hitch 130—Wordlessly, we moved aft to the stern and took up our usual starboard positions. Side-by-side we ran traplines, him gaffing crab pots while I emptied them over the washrail, re-baited, and tossed them back overboard. In oyster season I winched the scrape while he hoisted it over the transom...it wasn’t size or strength that qualified me to work alongside him. It just never would have occurred to us not to. We were partners in work and in life. Now, as Sonny readied the traplines I transferred handfuls of salted chum from a big barrel to the bait box behind the rotor to bait the hooks.
301—There on the glass shelf: prescription bottles...The bottles were mostly full, and I picked one up to look at it...I touched a couple of the other bottles...I didn’t recognize any of the names...I just closed the cabinet. SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR TO 235—I opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged among the canisters and jars for something to knock me out...it was Regina’s name I saw on the labels of opaque brown bottles of hormones. But not on any sleeping pills.