Fingerprints Of Previous Owners - Rebecca Entel, Ron Butler, Cherise Boothe, Robin Miles

This is astonishingly powerful.

There are things called 'Bench Stories' between the chapters of the main narrative. Each has an islander sitting on a bench, telling a story from his or her life to a stranger (we don't know who but it's fun to guess). They're basically short stories with a common context and they are so intense. I'd buy the book for them alone.

There's one where a man explains why he walks the island wearing an old sock with a worn violin hanging on his back. It is human, so full of remembered love and pain and present courage that it hurts.