THE LOBSTER CHRONICLES
by Linda Greenlaw
Reviewed by: Lenny Voo

Back in July during a trip to Mt. Desert Island, Maine, I wondered what it would be like to live there working as a lobsterman. So I picked up the The Lobster Chronicles by Linda Greenlaw and breezed through the book. I can now say that as tough, difficult, and yet rewarding as lobster fishing may be, it's not for me.

Linda Greenlaw, former Captain of the sister ship of the ill fated Andrea Gail of The Perfect Storm fame, shares her experience now as a 40 something single female captain of a lobster boat who wants to have a family. But she lives on an island with about 40 year round residents of which three are single bachelors - one is her cousin and the other two are gay. There's one road, one general store, a one room K-12 schoolhouse and one $300 a night B&B that uses oil lamps and candles for light at night; no hotels, no buses, no traffic lights, no ATMs, no restaurants, no museums, no shops and not much single life of any sort.

In her book she shares her life, her worries, her hopes and her dreams during one season of lobstering and intersperses it with colorful descriptions of island life and the people and nature that make it so. Stories of her parents hiding behind the couch when Rita the borrower comes up to the door of their house, of men in the boat yard baring their white-as-snow rear ends to her as she takes her boat out, of people setting her up with single off-island men, and of Island Boy Repairs who seem to inflict more damage than good on things they are supposed to repair, these stories are reflections of life everywhere.