The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island

Rating:
Summary: Empty Traps
Review: 'The Lobster Chronicles' describes Linda Greenlaw's frustrating lobster season off a Maine island. As Linda pulls up empty traps, the reader feels there is also something missing in the text.

The book does a nice job depicting life on a Maine island, where the author excels at painting the natural and physical features of the isle. You sniff the saltwater, pines and barnacles. Some of the island characters are wonderful in their stoic nature with an occasional streak of zaniness. Linda gives us a very textbook lesson in lobstering. We learn about these delicious giant insects, how they are captured and how they are replenished.

What Ms. Greenlaw does not provide is an honest depiction of herself. Why would an enormously successful sword fishing captain and best-selling author, settle on a tiny island? Why is her bank account so tight, when we know her earnings on the first book were very good? Perhaps she lost all the money. Tell us about it? Maybe a love or tragedy sent her home? We want to know?

'The Lobster Chronicles' is a good travel log. Like the missing lobsters, the book is empty when it comes honest self perspective.

Rating:
Summary: No Story
Review: A fitting title, but no story here other than the quiet life of a tomboy and her father. Nothing really happens, at least not in a way that was interesting to me. I enjoyed the book, I was relaxed by the book and I learned from the book. But in the end Lobster Chronicles was a bit lite for me. I never really got to know or understand any of the characters, the author included. I did not read her 1st book about sword fishing, but must assume it was better written than this one.

Michael Duranko
www.bootism.com

Rating:
Summary: Lovely, but incomplete
Review: A wonderful read by the ever engaging Linda Greenlaw who delivers a bittersweet and loving snapshot of her remote home island. A fascinating look inside the traditional lobster trade, the book is really about Greenlaw's own struggles to find meaning in her work, her life, and to begin to accept the mortality of her parents.

My only regret is that the book stops quite abruptly, leaving several story lines incomplete, requiring a terse afterword to sketch in some missing pieces.

But any time spent with Greenlaw is quality time; her anecdotes manage to be both charming and sharp-eyed. She'll be getting lots of mail over the one jarring section in the book, her rant over dog ownership: Greenlaw derides anyone who stoops to the poop and scoop element. Interestingly, it is this passage which gives us the key to the real theme in this book, Greenlaw's longing for a home, husband and children. Enduring love, like lobster fishing and dog ownership, involves some nasty bits, like handling rancid bait, picking up dirty socks, or dog poop. She understands the connection between the hard, often punishing work of fishing and its rewards...but until she can see what inspires a person to clean up after their dog, she won't be ready for a human of her own.

But she'll make it there; this woman has a huge heart and wonderful stories. Buy her books, they are rare treats.

Rating:
Summary: Immensely interesting
Review: This book is an interesting chronicle of a life about which I previously knew nothing. Five years ago, Linda Greenlaw gave up her 17-year career as a swordboat captain and returned home to her tiny island off the coast of Maine to fish for lobsters. Quite a change from her previous life on the high seas! She now "captains" a small boat with her only crew member being her father, a far cry from the excitement of swordfish fishing.

Greenlaw's unadorned, reportorial descriptions of the trials, tribulations, and sometimes- joys of the life she has chosen made for good reading. She gives us the technical and nautical details in ways that seem almost uncomplicated. I had no idea what lobster fishing involved and think she presented it in a great way. Her love of and respect for the ocean is apparent throughout the book.

I especially liked the vignettes of some of the islanders. Most entertaining. The book is really a lovely commentary on life, rather than a "how to" book on lobster fishing.