Pocket Snow has a lot on his mind even before the unidentified flying object crashes into the water at Perry’s Harbour, sending local fisherman scrambling to find survivors of an assumed plane crash. The excitement seems far away from the Snow household, as Pocket’s mother approaches death, and his father tries to cope. At Crosbey’s General Store, locals gather to discuss how the Coast Guard and Military officials—the knot of vessels squatting mysteriously out on the Sound—aren’t talking to the people of Perry’s. While en route to cover the crash, Ottawa reporter Rodney Nowland meets Wanda, a psychic UFO-chaser. The CBC sends a film crew; a Halifax reporter is on the way.

Meanwhile the Snow family holds its breath, and yet, with the arrival of strangers, the spark of possibility touches down, alighting briefly upon them all—even Merle Snow. In fact, the incident touches everybody, the people of Perry’s Harbour transformed in subtle ways.

A true incident—considered “Canada’s Roswell”—that occurred in 1967 in Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, forms the backdrop for Sounding Line, a novel about space, depth, and possibility.