Gravesend Light by David Payne

Young anthropologist Joe Madden retreats to his family's summer home on Little Roanoke on North Carolina's Outer Banks to conduct an ethnographic study of the fishermen and their families, taking a job on a fishing boat as part of his study and embarking on a passionate love affair with a feminist doctor at odds with the locals on their views on motherhood and abortion. Paperback, 2001 Goodreads: 3.56