League of Inveterate Poets

By Mark Traphagen on September 3, 2009

The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain’s Journey by Linda Greenlaw

My Goodreads rating: 3 of 5 stars
An interesting–if not quite gripping–true life account of a 30-day fishing expedition aboard a New England swordfishing boat. Main “hook” of this book is that the author-storyteller was the first successful female swordfish captain in that fleet. First-time author Linda Greenlaw is familiar to millions through the best-selling book and popular movie The Perfect Storm, as the boat captain friend of the doomed captain played by George Clooney.

Greenlaw gives readers an insiders glimpse at what many have called the most dangerous profession on earth. She does a good job of relating all aspects of the job: its romantic side (“if you are doing this for any other reason than the pure love of fishing, you won’t be doing it for long”); its boredom (it takes 5-6 days of steaming just to get to and from their legal fishing grounds); and its danger (from weather, a slippery deck full of sharp implements, and being so far from any help). Hanging over all of that is the more prosaic but very real tension of possible financial disaster: if they don’t catch enough fish, everyone aboard has done 30 days hard labor for no pay. Her account of this particular trip is buttressed by flashbacks to earlier experiences, usually disasters that she had learned from.

A particular charm of the book is her descriptions of the “characters,” the five men who made up her crew on the trip. They work as a good cross-section of typical modern-day fishermen. With all of their flaws (which are legion), they ultimately, like Greenlaw, are fishermen. An aside: Greenlaw makes a point early on in the book of rejecting the term “fisherwoman” for herself; she recognizes that she is competing in what had been exclusively a man’s world, and she prides herself on having earned a place as “one of the guys.”

Some readers may be put off by Greenlaw’s very apparent ego, but I kept in mind that she never would have been able to rise to the position of captain of such a vessel without being pretty tough and very sure of herself. Besides, she relates enough tales of her embarrassing mistakes to balance the braggadocio.

While this book had none of the high suspense and dramatic tension of Perfect Storm, I would still recommend it to anyone interested in learning about a unique way of life. While away on vacation this year I had begun to read her second book, The Lobster Chronicles, about her post-swordfish life, returning to her small home island off the coast of Maine to take up solo lobstering. In the portion I read, I could already see her improving as a writer, and I look forward to finishing that book.

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