In chapters 1-2, he lays out the history of settlement on the island, the beginning of the ‘exodus’, the demographics, and the geography/ hydrology of the island he introduces the reader to the “deprivations” of the island (no cell signal, unsafe tap water, no doctor or dentist, one ATM machine, and very few cars or trucks) and the basics of the crabbing season. In part one, “And Every Island Fled Away” (Chapters 1-5), Swift traces out the basics of island life and Tangier Island’s swift disappearance. Swift’s account is organized into five parts. To construct his narrative, he traces out a roughly chronological account of life on Tangier Island during the 2016 crab and oyster season and the events which drew international attention during the 2016 US presidential election his account is deeply interwoven with Chesapeake history, marine science and hydrology, politics, and conservation issues. And last, not least, this is one big extended family: All but a few islanders can trace their lineage to a single man” (Swift 6). It is a near-theocracy of old school Christians who brook no trade in alcohol, and kept a major movie from filming in their midst over scenes of sex and beer.
Its virtually amphibious men follow a calendar set by the Chesapeake Bay blue crab, and they catch more of the prized delicacy than anyone else. Swift reckons with the popular romanticized view of the island- “here people live so isolated for so long that they have their own style of speech, a singsong brogue of old words and phrases, twisted vowels, odd rhythms.
In Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island, Virginia based journalist Earl Swift employs ethnographic methods to investigate life on Tangier island in the context of current and historic events. Earl Swift, Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island.
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