Amazon.com Review
The term
fisherwoman does not exactly roll trippingly off the tongue, and Linda Greenlaw, the world's only female swordfish boat captain, isn't flattered when people insist on calling her one. "I am a woman. I am a fisherman... I am not a fisherwoman, fisherlady, or fishergirl. If anything else, I am a thirty-seven-year-old tomboy. It's a word I have never outgrown." Greenlaw also happens to be one of the most successful fishermen in the Grand Banks commercial fleet, though until the publication of Sebastian Junger's
The Perfect Storm, "nobody cared." Greenlaw's boat, the
Hannah Boden, was the sister ship to the doomed
Andrea Gail, which disappeared in the mother of all storms in 1991 and became the focus of Junger's book.
The Hungry Ocean, Greenlaw's account of a monthlong swordfishing trip over 1,000 nautical miles out to sea, tells the story of what happens when things go right--proving, in the process, that every successful voyage is a study in narrowly averted disaster.
There is the weather, the constant danger of mechanical failure, the perils of controlling five sleep-, women-, and booze-deprived young fishermen in close quarters, not to mention the threat of a bad fishing run: "If we don't catch fish, we don't get paid, period. In short, there is no labor union." Greenlaw's straightforward, uncluttered prose underscores the qualities that make her a good captain, regardless of gender: fairness, physical and mental endurance, obsessive attention to detail. But, ultimately, Greenlaw proves that the love of fishing--in all of its grueling, isolating, suspenseful glory--is a matter of the heart and blood, not the mind. "I knew that the ocean had stories to tell me, all I needed to do was listen." --Svenja Soldovieri
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Greenlaw, captain of a commercial swordfishing boat, tells a new brand of salty tale. She is a woman who has succeeded in a codified and clannish man's vocation, and her take on life at sea is clear-eyed and fresh as she relates the day-to-day facts of a single voyage. Reading her diarylike entries, she sounds straightforward and realAwithout suffering the flatness of tone that often afflicts nonprofessional performers. She starts on sailing day, telling how her boat is prepared, then introduces her five-man crew as they arrive shipsideAwith telltale pounding hangovers. Then she gets into the dynamic of the job, what it means to spend 30 days in a 100-ft. space, working long hours. With the crew, naturally, come "crew problems": sickness, conflicts, insubordination. Here, Greenlaw shines, giving a wonderful sense of what she calls "the etiquette" of her work. Greenlaw proves that it doesn't take life-and-death conflict to make sea adventure compelling; what sets her world apart is spelled out in the details, as she succinctly depicts her singular way of life. Thanks to the intimacy afforded by the spoken-word medium, listeners will feel as if they're right alongside the captain on her journey. Based on the 1999 Little, Brown hardcover. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
