Thomas digs clams. His neighbors think him peculiar, and he's made peace with their thinking. He wants nothing from the wealthy Goodwin next door, whose grand house and comfortable life hold no appeal for a man who has found what he needs in the tide flats and the early morning. Then Eve walks down to the shore. She is the governess to Goodwin's children, a woman caught between expectations she never chose and a longing for something genuine. What follows is a quiet, probing conversation between two people who should have nothing in common, yet recognize in each other a hunger the wealthy have never had to feel. Hopkins writes with gentle irony and deep tenderness about a man who has made peace with solitude and a woman learning that contentment cannot be purchased. The Clammer is a small, unhurried novel that asks whether love can cross the chasm between a clammer's muddy hands and a governess's borrowed silk.
