Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn: A Novel [Paperback]

Paul Watkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1996

Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn is a coming-of-age novel of ample beauty, insight, and intensity. Defying the wishes of his family, James Pfeiffer--twenty years old and newly expelled from college--heeds the call of the open waters off the Rhode Island coast. Joining the crew of a broken-down scallop trawler, James seeks to learn the ways of fishermen like his father. Through endless days of exhausting labor in the company of dangerous men, James learns shockingly brutal and unexpectedly sobering lessons. But as James discovers the secrets of his motley crewmembers, he realizes that every fisherman has his own reasons to love the sea, in all its promise and treachery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sharks are not the only peril faced by James Pfeiffer, age 20, as he works on a scallop trawler off the Rhode Island coast. Treacherous accidents and the risk of drug-running operations cloud the waters; the sting of losing his girlfriend adds bite to the salt air. Watkins, whose critically praised first novel, Night over Day over Night , was published when he himself was his hero's age (he is now 24), has worked on the ships he writes about, and his seafaring adventure is also a coming-of-age novel. James's mixture of love and contempt for his fisherman father Russ, coupled with Russ's fierce desire to see his son make something better of himself, drives the story. Among the crew members are an ex-Green Beret with psychotic tendencies and a hard-drinking former lumberjack. Watkins's spare, whittled-down prose does not buoy up the action, but readers will savor the realistic evocations of life at sea and the portrayal of a particular maritime subculture.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This novel of a young man's indoctrination into his fisherman father's way of life is engaging, believable, and unromantic. So genuine are the events and dialogue that the book's flaws--melodramatic lines muttered as the father wakes from nightmares, the hero's tritely rendered entrepreneur brother, the occasional telegraphing of events intended to surprise--stand out in stark relief. Still, there are plenty of moments--most particularly, the moving ending, plausible yet startling--that evince Watkins's skill with plot. His greatest skill, however, is his outstanding descriptive power: Some of the images, including a barnacle-encrusted corpse and a crewman gravely injured by the dredge cables, are unforgettable. Readers who know the docks of the Atlantic fisheries will instantly recognize the rugged fishermen and rusted vessels Watkins depicts. Don't look for profundity here, but expect a good read.
- Frank Pisano, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Picador (October 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312154186
• ISBN-13: 978-0312154189
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 4.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,803,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Watkins' Best, April 30, 2002

By 

Richard A. Mitchell "Rick Mitchell" (candia, new hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn: A Novel (Paperback)

After Archangel, The Forger and Night Over Day Over Night I liked Watkins but felt each book somehow just missed. This one did not. Simply one of the best books I have ever read.

Watkins writes with a grueling sensitivity that is unparalleled. He writes realistically of the hard, dirty, unrelentingly difficult life of a fisherman with a sensitive hand but without maudlin sympathy. Watkins' succinct writing style adds to the tone. You get to know his main character without really understanding him. Indeed, it is clear he does not understand himself. It would be unfair for the reader to do so.

A book of dreams clashing with reality - a place we have all been, especially when youth is meeting adulthood. This is a book you truly will not be able to put down.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Paul Watkins book you can't put down, March 6, 2002

By 

D. Cooke "[e-mail]" (Macon, GA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Calm At Sunset Calm At Dawn (Paperback)

Paul Watkins is the best fiction writer alive. Like his other books, "Calm at Sunset" showcases his ability to create true to life characters with a journalist's eye for detail and economy of words. As always, at the heart of his story is a moral core that is absent from most modern fiction. Mr. Watkins writes the kind of book you want to own, to read and re-read, and to pass on to your children.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New England waters we readers will never know as well as he, February 5, 1999

By 

Larry Pomatto ([e-mail]) (Dover, Delaware USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn: A Novel (Paperback)

Where to begin...? Perhaps I should just say that last summer when I asked my now-fiance for her hand in marriage on the beach below the Southeast Lighthouse on the beach under Mohegan bluffs, little did I know that James Pfeiffer's grandfather washed up at that very spot! Or that his grandfather is now buried on--or has since been eroded from--the cliff above.

The tale must be true, for Watkins gives it as true a rendering as an in-lander such as myself could ever comprehend. Pfeif might find it ironic that I--admittedly much closer to a Gatsby boy than he'd care to be associated with, or than I'd like to admit--would consider his sea saga indelibly inked in my mind, and my soul.

Though it was just a momentary setting in the book, I can now say that I have visited Block Island and its waters *twice*--once physically as a tourist, and once metaphysically via Calm at Sunset...--from taking the ferry, to riding out to the bluffs by bike, to smelling the salty air.

Strange the way things work out, both in life and in literature. I hadn't known where this story was set, only that it was written by Watkins. But having read _Archangel_ and _In the Blue Light of African Dreams_, that was sufficient. Next Watkins masterpiece! (And let's hope they keep coming!)