Life on a Very Small Island
by Linda Greenlaw
I didn\’t like this book as much as The Hungry Ocean, but it was still a very good read. After years of swordboat fishing on the ocean, Greenlaw went back home to the small New England island where her parents still lived, to become a \”lobsterman\”. The island is so small it only has some forty year-round inhabitants, increasing to about seventy in the summer months when vacationers come. I was fascinated by the accounts of trapping lobsters, but even more so enthralled with Greenlaw\’s stories of her neighbors and friends on the island. More than a treatise on lobsters and fishing, The Lobster Chronicles describes what life is like in such a small, family-centered town. It\’s really interesting and quite funny at times. There\’s so many fascinating characters, intrigues, small-town politics, and the spirit of community pride and solidarity. And in the last twenty pages you\’ll find two scrumptious-sounding recipes for lobster! Boiled and casseroled. Yum. Mostly, I would say this book is about life. Capitalize that: LIFE with all its ups and downs.
My favorite line was this (describing a walk through a piece of forest in the dark): \”A startled rabbit skittering from ditch to ditch like a bead of hot water in a skillet would pace my heart at the same beat.\”
Rating: 3/5 238 pages, 2002