Sometimes An Island

by Ellen Meeropol

Overview

After Cossacks burn their home, ten-year-old Deborah and her father flee their shtetl to a remote island on Maine's Penobscot Bay, seeking refuge and a new beginning. More than a century later, their descendants are once again uprooted, this time driven by rising seas and a collapsing world. From coastal towns to higher ground, a new community emerges: off-grid, tightly knit, and forged from an unlikely alliance of island refugees, family from Brooklyn, friends from a fractured Massachusetts co-op, and others seeking sanctuary as the political landscape grows increasingly volatile.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781961864504
Publisher:	Sea Crow Press
Publication date:	03/03/2026
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Ellen Meeropol is the author of the previous novels The Lost Women of Azalea Court, Her Sister's Tattoo, Kinship of Clover, On Hurricane Island, and House Arrest, and the play Gridlock. She is the guest editor for the anthology Dreams for a Broken World. Essay and story publications include Ms. Magazine, Lilith, The Writer Magazine, The Boston Globe, Solstice Magazine, Guernica, Lit Hub, and Mom Egg Review. Her work focuses on the lives of women, especially those on the fault lines between political activism and family, and has been a finalist for the Sarton Women's Prize, longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and selected by the Women's National Book Association as a Great Group Reads.Ellen lives in western Massachusetts, where she is a founding mother of Straw Dog Writers Guild.

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher