The Reef by Edith Wharton

At the age of eleven, Triton goes to work as a houseboy to Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed with the island’s disappearing reef. It was the biggest house he had ever seen. People from all over the world came here to sell their wares, to talk, to live, for this was where life took place. Even the sun would rise from the garage and sleep behind the del tree at night. But beyond Mister Salgado’s house and their Sri Lankan village, there is a world falling apart and it is in this world that Triton must become a man.