A story about Duncan Elliot, a professor who has just been left by his wife. Ocracoke Island is an exploration of the mind of a man who is confronting many things all at once: his age, romantic opportunities that have left him behind, having his heart broken after a lifetime of breaking hearts himself, the emasculation of his young wife leaving him for a poet, etc. It takes place over the course of a single day. There’s a light dusting of absurdism and neuroticism, as Duncan finds himself stuck in conversations, obsesses over what to say or how he just said the wrong thing, and fully expects to make the same mistakes in his next encounter.

The tone is melancholic. Duncan never really considers strong action, despite a few violent fantasies. He just doesn’t have the energy for that anymore. It’s actually a pretty savage portrayal in a quiet, desperate way, and I wonder if Alice Adams had someone specific in mind when she wrote this.

Ocracoke Island from the same book of 1988 O. Henry award-winners as Errand, and has some “bad literary” traits. It’s more successful as a story, managing to create a sense of tension verging on menace where Errand never really escaped pseudo-biography for me. But it’s still thoroughly bound up in tropes of a certain era - think high-concept romantic comedy with themes of existential dread. It reminded me of the movie Wonder Boys, although without the extremes of black comedy. There’s also a Woody Allen tint to the main character.

Clean, confident, evocative of a certain atmosphere, albeit one that doesn’t particularly draw me in.