The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (P.S.) | Sebastian Junger

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (P.S.) | Sebastian Junger | A Chilling Addition to a Modern Genre

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The Perfect Storm:...

	The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (P.S.) Sebastian Junger Harper Perennial, 2007 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 898 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Masterful Nonfiction "Novel"

Like Truman Capote, to whom he is being more and more often compared, Sebastian Junger has written an engrossing nonfiction "novel" about the lives and deaths ? and most everything in between ? of New England's professional fishermen. The book is compelling and suspenseful at every turn, and it really feels like a novel, a thriller ? if it weren't for the fact that you know it's all true.

At times funny, at times heartbreaking, always fascinating and thrilling, this was one of my favorites reads of the last few years. A note of caution for younger or particular sensitive readers: there are a few places (I won't say what or where exactly) that are very disturbing and sobering. It is, after all, in the end, a story about death and the people who face it to put swordfish on the menu at your favorite restaurant.

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A Chilling Addition to a Modern Genre

The Perfect Storm belongs to a genre of historical writing
that involves the telling of a tale as a narrative and then
retelling it on every other possible level. So the story of
a fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, that's lost in a storm
with all six of its crew is the at the core.

The next layer is recounted as a journalist's reconstruction
of the days leading up to the voyage and the reasons that
each of the six men went fishing. Then there's the layer about
meteorology and one about commercial fishing and its
realities and another about rescue operations. There is even
a final layer about the physiology of death by drowning
that's accompanied by some speculations about what that
experience would be like.

Junger's writing is clinical and it would be easy to
be put off by it, but for me, the writer's detachment only
added to the horror of the story and the emotional impact.
As a bonus (like on those re-issued DVD's) there the
equally chilling story of the loss of a storm jumper and
the gut-chilling stories of the survivors of the fishermen.

Some of the extra material feels like padding and that is the
only reason that this isn't a five star review. In any
case, an excellent read that will be sure to cost you some
sleep. If you like this, you might want to check out John
McPhee's Oranges or the perfectly terrifying Devil in the
White City.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books. ISBN 9781601640005

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VERY SUPRISINGLY INTERESTING BOOK....

THIS BOOK NOT ONLY DESCRIBED IN DETAIL THE FINAL MOMENTS IN THIS "PERFECT STORM" TO ALL THE PEOPLE INVOLVED, MAKING FOR A VERY SCARY READ UNTIL THE LAST MOMENT, IT ALSO GOES IN GREAT DETAIL OF A FISHERMAN'S LIFE. I LEARNED MUCH ABOUT THIS LIFE THAT I REALLY HAD NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT,EVEN AFTER SEEING THE MOVIE. ALSO AGAIN, WITH THE DETAILS, U FEEL AS THOUGH U WERE ON THE WATER, GOING THRU THIS MONSTER. A GREAT READ!!

A Swell Read

I began this book late one night after finishing the last book and immediately was swept in. This is not my typical reading faire but I do love any stories of the sea so it still follows suit. The storytelling isn't anything unique, the plot isn't one that hasn't been explored before, but whatever this writer did - it sucked me straight in, tearing apart the book in a little over a day. The story is about 6 fisherman abord the Andrea Gail during the Halloween Gail of 1991. No one survived and no distress calls were ever heard from the ship, making it very hard to come up with the last minutes aboard the ship but the writer does a fairly good job at that and you can almost put yourself on the deck with those men, feeling the rise and fall of the swells and the sheer terror they must have felt seeing 100 + foot waves about to break on the bow. The only criticism is that I feel that the author could have wrote a bit more chronologically (he does bounce a bit) and done more of a back story on the fisherman than just on Bobby. I think it would have filled out the story just enough but the book was quite well without it.

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Perfect Storm