The Perfect Storm

By Anne Collins, Sebastian Junger

Subjects: Swordfish fisheries, American English, Seafaring life, Open Library Staff Picks, Northeast storms, Reading Level-Grade 12, Storms, Manners and customs, Fishers, Study and teaching, Swordfish fishing, Readers (Adult), English language, Massachusetts, social life and customs, Foreign speakers, Film novelizations, Survival, Social life & customs, New York Times reviewed, Alex award, Hurricane Grace, 1991, Halloween Nor'easter, 1991, ELT graded readers, Shipwrecks, Social life and customs, Disasters, Gloucester (Mass.), Reading Level-Grade 11, Tropical Storm Grace, 1997, Natural disasters, Severe storms, History, Ships, Fisheries, Andrea Gail (Boat), Andrea Gail (Ship)

Description: It was the storm of the century, boasting waves over one hundred feet high --- a tempest created by so rare a combination of factors that meteorologists deemed it "the perfect storm." When it struck in October 1991, there was a virtually no warning. "She's comin; on, boys, and she's comin' on strong." radioed Captain Billy Tyne of the Andrew Gail off the coast of Nova Scotia, and soon afterward the boat and its crew of six disappeared without a trace. In a narrative taut with the fury of the elements, Sebastian Junger takes us deep into the heart of the storm, depicting with vivid detail the courage, terror, and awe that surface in such a gale,. Junger illustrates a world of swordfishermen consumed by the dangerous but lucrative trade of offshore fishing ---"a young man's game, a single man's game" --- and gives us a glimpse of their lives in the tough fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts; he recreates the last moments of the Andrea Gail crew and recounts the daring high-seas rescues that made heroes of some and victims of others, and he weaves together the history of the fishing industry, the science of the storms, and the candid accounts of the people whos lives the storms touched. The Perfect Storm is a real-life thriller that leaves us with the taste of salt air on our tongues and a breathless sense of what it feels like to be caught, helpless, in the grip of a force of nature beyond our understanding or control. We know, on the strength of this stark and compelling journey into the dark heart of nature, what it feels like to drown.