'Every Boat' sails on storms and seacraft

If you believe that there is a broken-hearted sailor inside every man and that there is nothing more beautiful than a trim starboard galley with plenty of elbow room, then you will enjoy "Every Boat Turns South" as much as you would meeting an old friend. J.P. White's lyric sea chantey brims with descriptions of boats and sailing that will stir the blood of anyone who has ever wanted to take off for the horizon.

Matt Younger, White's narrator, is a boat deliverer, drifter and ne'er-do-well on the run from a family tragedy and, of course, himself. He gets involved with coke dealers in the Bahamas, winding up in a fishing village in the Dominican Republic, and from there on it's pirates, rum runners and wild-eyed wenches all dressed up for the 21st century.

In the center of this maelstrom, Younger maintains a devoted love for just two things: boats and women's bodies. He sees both, it seems, as beautiful vehicles of escape. When he describes a Tartan '37 with teak trim whose "50 jenny is missing a couple of hanks," his longing is palpable. When White narrates a hair-raising journey through a patch of open ocean aptly called the Thorny Path, he takes his place next to adventure writers R.L. Stevenson and Robert Stone: "Stardust rolls down the waves, some charging toward her, some boiling beneath her, others smacking her abeam. With a listing starboard pontoon, no engine mount, and the wind tearing the head off every wave ... in a few more hours, she'll be without any power, just a flagon of floating dark." It's the mix of accuracy and lyricism that makes the reader's pulse pound here.

Sadly, White is less successful when describing women. Standing in a bar next to his rescue object, Younger gets their photo snapped. He looks at the picture and sees " a girl-woman with brown eyes full of mischief and wonder."

This woodland sprite is actually Rosario, Younger's rescue object and femme fatale. To White's credit, he tries to make the women and the non-gringo characters in this tropical tale three-dimensional, but he's best when he sticks to storms and sailing.

One surprise in this book is how well White handles domestic tragedy. Younger's aging parents are dealing with death and bills, and White's description of a wife who sleeps next to a cordless phone so she can keep scheduling visiting nurses for her dying husband is as terrifying as any sudden sea squall, especially when her son casually notes that she will soon be penniless. "Weather is always with us," notes Younger's mother, and stormy weather and swift sea-craft are what White does well. This is a book for boat lovers and for men who would go down to the sea in ships.

Emily Carter is the author of "Glory Goes and Gets Some."