Stern Men published by Houghton Mifflin, 2000

Reviews:
"In this breezily appealing first novel, Elizabeth Gilbert presents us a heroine as smart, sly, plucky and altogether winning as her own prose; it's difficult, in fact, not to develop a knee-weakening crush on both."
— Jonathan Miles, Salon Books
"Thank God. Elizabeth Gilbert has written a novel."
—GQ
"Finding an Austin heroine in a lobster boat -- an irreverent and observant young woman, reeking of bait -- is one of the many delights to be delivered by Elizabeth Gilbert in Stern Men, her beautifully wrought and very funny first novel."
—Mirabella
"Ruth loves her island with a heroine's passionate wisdom, but she falls in love with a boy from the enemy clan...there's Romeo and Juliet in the drama of the young lovers."
—LA Times
"A howlingly funny first novel"
—San Francisco Chronicle
"While Elizabeth Gilbert is not the first writer to suggest that smart women have much to teach stern men, she puts the idea forward with rugged power."
—New York Times Book Review
"Rich as drawn butter and as comical as the crawly crustacean itself, Stern Men is high entertainment. Elizabeth Gilbert has penned a Dickensian tale; one wishes it ran in two volumes."
—USA Today
"A wonderful novel that will have you laughing out loud, Stern Men is an admirable debut from a writer obviously destined for literary longevity."
—Denver Post
"Gilbert's storytelling brio and keen intelligence prove irresistible."
—Newsday