Customer Reviews

Hair of the Dog: Tales from Aboard a Russian Trawler

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This is a special book and a very enjoyable read. Oakley perservered in getting it published and we are all the beneficiaries. Give yourself a treat and get a glimpse of US-Soviet relations that few Americans have witnessed. This book is not just a factual account of life at sea; it is a view into the Russian soul and psyche. You will not regret it.

Hair of the Dog is an immensely interesting tale of the life of an American translator aboard Soviet fishing trawlers during a Joint-Venture in the late 1980s. The story gives insight into the lives of the Soviets and how they lived with constant observation by the political commissars and KGB agents while working alongside the Americans. The friendships formed by the author and the experiences she had as both a translator and representative of America were solid and left me wishing I could have joined her out at sea. The story flows well and was an extremely easy read for anyone interested in Russia, the Soviet Union and the people of both great countries.

Like most Americans, I had no idea that in the 70s and 80s, in the middle of the Cold War, a joint venture teamed American and Russian fishermen to catch and process fish in the north Pacific ocean. Each Russian fishing boat had an American translator assigned to it. Barbara Oakley was one of those translators, and this is the fascinating story of her adventures on Russian fishing boats.
Oakley is a good writer and a born storyteller. Hair of the Dog opens with the newly arrived translator being invited to the captain's cabin at midnight for "tea". She promptly learns that vodka, in large quantities, is more the beverage of choice on Russians ships (although she has a few words about the strong Russian tea as well) and acclimates herself to working with people who seem to consume more alcohol each day than most Americans drink in a month. The description of the fishing industry is interesting, but the colorful characters, like the "political commissar" assigned to each Russian ship and the fishing captain who was so fat he had difficulty getting off his ship, are what kept me rapt. I might have suspected the author of liberal literary license if she hadn't assured readers that she kept a daily journal that allowed her to produce an accurate report.
I first encountered Barb Oakley as the author of Evil Genes. It was intriguing to find an engineering professor writing a book about "evil" people past and present, and when I found out that she is a former Army Russian linguist, I was even more curious about her unusual background. Hair of the Dog fills in another chapter of her life, and it was definitely worth searching it out in the used-book market. Now I wish she would write a book about how she met her future husband at the South Pole....

She gave a detailed of how the journey would go through out the ship voyage and gives reader a great idea of how brave she was on the ship. This book does not only show the readers that even you only spend most of the time on the ship that you can still have fun and this a once a life time experience. You can imagine how people who sail or working on the ship most of the time, and how they spent their time. It's a great and fuuny book and gives me a imagination of how her journey is.