New York: Hyperion Books, 2002
$22.95
Island life, viewed from within
This is not a definitive book about lobstering, nor is it a contrived description of idyllic island life. It is a book in which island residents and small-town residents will see themselves and their communities: the frustrations, the benefits, the characters, the challenges, the politics, the histories. Chapters about her fishing experiences are woven through chapters on island living.
In the 1990s Linda Greenlaw returns to Isle au Haut, her island home. After 17 years of swordfishing, she wants nothing more than to build a permanent home and make a living lobstering. Part of this desire is to ensure a sustainable community; part of guaranteeing a sustainable community is the knowledge that, as Greenlaw states, “All residents of coastal Maine, whether they live on an island or the mainland, are part of the fishing community and have a degree of interest in the progress of each (lobstering) season.”
Maintaining island viability, to a great extent, is dependent upon a successful fishing community. If fishing is not the primary source of income for many of island families, it is certainly a secondary or tertiary source, and its ramifications extend to almost all of the remainder of the community.
Some technical aspects of lobstering are included in the book, and we are run through a season of lobstering, from preparing the traps to hauling them out for the winter. There is a fairly thorough and somewhat technical description of trap construction and the reasons for individual architectural details, but the reproductive life of a female lobster was laugh-out-loud material.
Greenlaw expounds on the need for young families on islands, and the drain of the continuous population shift to the mainland. She alludes to the shrinking population throughout her book, mentioning the island’s decreasing store hours and the reduction in school population as examples. An encroachment of mainland fisherman in the traditional Isle au Haut fishing grounds is another theme, and she aptly explains and defends islanders’ rights to their historical grounds. Greenlaw doesn’t slam her audience over the head to make the point; nevertheless, the reader can make the analogy that as the lobster ground shrinks, so does the population of the island.
Beyond references to lobstering, Greenlaw paints a realistic portrait of small Maine island life and the inhabitants of those islands. Her chapter entitled “The Lighthouse Committee” could read “The Rec Center Committee,” “The School Committee,” “The Library Committee,” or “The Housing Committee” on another island. Certainly many of us can empathize when Greenlaw writes “As much talk as there is about ‘healing the community’ and the disgust we feel in the pits of our stomachs when another scathing letter is posted for public display, the rifts just keep getting wider and wider.” And, “A phenomenon of small town politics is the ability of the ‘two opposed’ to not give up the ship to the ‘forty-one’ in favor.” Or “On the Island, it is never enough simply to exhaust a topic; it needs to be replaced by something or it will go on being discussed no matter how little more can be said.” Greenlaw has a capacity to distill and encapsulate in words the sorrier slices of island life.
This is not to suggest that her book concentrates solely on the negative aspects of island life and lobstering. The Lobster Chronicles is written with humor and wry amusement. The love and pride she takes in her island is an inherent trait of islanders, and so is self-deprecating humor. She calls a fishermen’s organization “an oxymoron in that groups of fishermen are, by nature, unorganized … Fishermen are necessarily independent in thought and action … It is a virtual impossibility to find two fishermen who can come to total agreement on any single point other than the price of whatever species they are harvesting being too low or diesel fuel too high.” In another observation, she says that “We [islanders] do not fear sickness or injury but we do worry about troubling our neighbors when we need evacuation to a medical facility. We do not fear death by drowning…Some innate Islandness keeps our fears of physical danger from impinging on our lives.”
Her descriptions of selected island and from-away characters allow us to understand that every island has its share, but not all of us have the capacity to describe in such delectable detail the composition of the personality that defines their individuality. From the hunky but unreliable “Stern-Fabio,” to the self-proclaimed but unfulfilled fix-it men, “Island Boys Repair,” her people-painting descriptions are delightful.
Greenlaw strews gems of phrases throughout her book. Some of us have wondered what lobster fishermen would have done to Carl Sandburg if they were around when he wrote that fog that came in “on little cat feet” when it seems to come in more like a charging herd of rhinos. Greenlaw describes it as a “cold raw oyster.” “This morning’s dew clung to the berries like syrup, moistening their skins to the color of mussel shells still damp and freshly exposed by an ebbing tide.” “Jack sat, appearing as cool as the underside of a pillow.” “…Being unmaterialistic was a situational virtue, not a heartfelt belief.”
If there were anything to quibble about, it would be minor. There are chronological inaccuracies. Attempting to make sense out of the references to number of years doesn’t work. However, Greenlaw writes a disclaimer about chronology in her Note from the Author. Vinalhaven is broken into two words. All 14 island schoolhouses are not one-room schoolhouses. These are niggling points and in no way do these minor details detract from the book.
The book is a treasure chest, and each chapter a jewel that stands on its own. This, her second somewhat autobiographical effort (after The Hungry Ocean), is another winner – an amusing, insightful, first-hand account of island life and island people.
Lisa Shields and Bonnie MacDonald are both residents of North Haven.