Linda Greenlaw

In this memoir, fishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw writes about a typical 30-day fishing trip from her boat’s base in Gloucester, Massachusetts, to the Grand Banks off of Newfoundland. Linda and her five-man crew deal with the weather, competition from other fishing boats who all want to find the best piece of water to fish, and interpersonal conflict among the crew. Greenlaw intersperses stories from her past experience into the text. Greenlaw provided just enough detail without show more overexplaining for readers like me without any knowledge or experience of sailing and fishing.

If you’ve read Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, you’ve met Linda Greenlaw before. Linda’s boat, the Hannah Boden, was fishing several hundred miles east of the Andrea Gail when she went down in that terrible storm. Greenlaw was the last person to have radio contact with the Andrea Gail’s captain, and the two boats were owned by the same man.

Greenlaw shares that she got into commercial fishing to pay her way through college, and she didn’t start with the intention of making a career of fishing. She found she enjoyed it. Her college education (English major) wasn’t wasted since she has developed a second career as an author. One of the most appealing aspects of this book is reading about a woman close to my own age whose life experience is so different from mine. This is the first of several memoirs, and I’m interested enough in Greenlaw’s story to keep reading. show less

I wish I liked the Linda Greenlaw portrayed here more than ended up liking her. The book is fair, but I don't fault her for that. At the time she wrote this, she was simply not a writer. And for someone who hasn't written much, this book is clear, practical, straightforward, unromantic (except for certain awkward moments, where such romanticism seemed forced). I admire her attitude and her toughness as a person, but I simply did not like this book, despite being a fiend for all literature show more nautical in nature. First, I simply could not get over the fact that her response to a seething, ugly racist on her crew was silence. Not just once, but several times. He verbally attacked a black man who was also on the crew--and who, it appears by the end of the book, is the most able crewman aboard. He calls him a nigger and a "porch monkey" and Linda has very little to say about this. She takes great care to let us know this young racist is a good kid and a good crewman. He'll settle down once we're fishing, she tells the reader. Huh? Just as I reluctantly buy into this, he makes a noose right in front of her and muses about lynching his fellow crewman. Again, there is no response. I was aghast. She's the captain. She has no problem later in the book ripping another crewman a new one because he mentioned over radio the fact that the boat had had a fantastic day of fishing (she didn't want other captain's to overhear the transmission and then try to encroach on her berth). In fact, she rips him, acidly, for a full day. However, she has nothing to say to Carl, who calls a fellow crewman a porch monkey, a nigger, and who mentions in her presence that he'd like to "lynch" him? Because she spends so much time talking about crew morale, about how important their states of collective mind are, I don't see any compelling reason why she handled this the way she did. And I found it very hard to get back on track after reading those scenes. No, a commercial boat is not going to be the f-ing Rainbow Coalition. Linda's silence in the fact of this crap was bad enough, but when she tried then to tell the reader that this young man was one of the best crewmen she'd ever worked with, I was done here.

Of course, I finished the book (I always do) and found some interesting parts to distract me from this. But then we get to the part where a swordfish is stabbed, tied to the stern, and lit on fire, just to "change our luck." (Disturbingly, the very few negative reviews of this book I've read on Goodreads have only mentioned reviewers' disgust with the swordfish scene, not a peep about the creepy way Greenlaw ignored the vile attacks on her best crewman).

Again, I fully realize that the sea is not romantic, not to a commercial fisherman. It's the most difficult, dangerous job for a reason, and there is no luxury aboard of being able to examine your philosophies when you're in the midst of it. However, there was plenty of time for reflection by the time Greenlaw wrote this. To her credit, she included the ugliness of Carl's treatment of Peter, but she did not address it. It seemed to be included only to add color.

Gah. I hate that I don't like this book, because two authors I admire immensely--Sebastian Junger and Douglas Whynott--both praised this account. Sigh. This has been the summer of Hating Books Everyone Else Loves. show less

Greenlaw’s first memoir described a typical 30-day swordfishing trip on the 6-person boat that she captained. Several years later, Greenlaw has returned to her native Isle au Haut, Maine and exchanged swordfishing for lobster fishing. Her second memoir describes a season of setting and hauling in traps with her father on her boat, the Mattie Belle. Greenlaw doesn’t seem to find lobster fishing as fulfilling as swordfishing, and she’s more interested in telling stories about the show more island’s history, her extended family, and other island residents (both year-round and summer), resulting in a disjointed narrative. Greenlaw’s irritability made it hard to empathize with her, and I almost stopped reading when she revealed her antipathy toward dogs. show less

Covering the trajectory of one full fishing trip, and intermixed with memorable (often disastrous) moments from other trips, Greenlaw's work is both honest and fascinating. From concerns about crewing a swordfish boat to the day-to-day actions and reactions of a captain of the same, the work maneuvers around a world that most readers will find entirely unfamiliar, and it does so with both humor and humanity in mind. By balancing between this fishing world and the social world of a nearly show more month-long trip built for swordfish and six very different individuals on a relatively small boat, Greenlaw moves the narrative at a fast pace.

Whether you're interested in fishing or not, this really is a marvelous look into a world that, for most of us, is simply foreign and all but unimaginable. Greenlaw makes it wonderfully real in this quick-moving memoir. If you love the ocean or, very simply, love a good story, let alone the science of fishing, you might very well find this worth your time.

Recommended. show less