Lorelie L. (artgal36) reviewed The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island on + 471 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
Greenlaw (The Hungry Ocean), known to readers of The Perfect Storm as the captain of the sister ship to the ill-fated Andrea Gail, gave up swordfishing to return to her parents' home on Isle Au Haut off the coast of Maine and fish for lobster. Her plainspoken essays paint a picture of a grueling life as she details maintaining her boat and her equipment, setting and hauling hundreds of traps with a crew of one (her father, a retired steel company executive), contending with the weather and surviving seasons when the lobsters don't bother to come around. She intersperses her narrative with plenty of eccentrics who live on her tiny island (there are 47 full-time residents, half of whom she's somehow related to). Among them are Rita, the inveterate borrower who's such a nuisance that Greenlaw's parents hide behind the couch when they see her coming; George and Tommy of Island Boy Repairs, who make a horrendous mess of every job they undertake; and Victor, the cigar-eating womanizer who imports a red-headed flasher from Alabama. One of Greenlaw's themes is her desire to find a husband but, according to her friend Alden, she intimidates men: she's tough talking, feisty and very self-assured, which is no doubt why the other lobstermen on the island readily accept her as one of them. Self-speculation and uncertainties such as these nicely balance her delightfully cocky essays of island life.
Carroll H. (Seahorse) reviewed The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island on + 30 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Wonderful descriptions of small town (island) Maine and the difficult life of the modern day lobster fisherman. Written with humor and love for the locale.
Covers one bad lobster season, while telling background stories. Also nice from a feminist perspective, as the author is a woman in a traditionally and still male dominated profession. She acknowledges this, while not seeming to be phased by it or feel excluded.
Enjoyable, quick read.
Covers one bad lobster season, while telling background stories. Also nice from a feminist perspective, as the author is a woman in a traditionally and still male dominated profession. She acknowledges this, while not seeming to be phased by it or feel excluded.
Enjoyable, quick read.
Helpful Score: 3
I could not put this book down - read it in a day! Fascinating details about fishing for lobsters and life in a small town. Her writing is concise but wryly funny. Her descriptions of the neighbors on this small island range from engaging to hilarious.
Karen K. (krin) reviewed The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island on + 407 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I enjoyed reading this book about trying to make a new life back home. I especially like Linda's observations about her relatives and other Islanders.
Christine (luvmygem) -
Helpful Score: 2
I enjoyed this book. I thought it was a little bit easier to read than "The Hungry Ocean", as the technical side of being a swordboat captain was sometimes hard to follow, but The Lobster Chronicles is more about coming home and seeing life through older, wiser eyes as than it is about catching lobsters...although she does explain the intricacies of that quite well, too. She made her island home sound like a place I would love to see someday.
