Books Set in North America; Atlantic Ocean and United States, Massachusetts

The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger (1997)

 

The Perfect Storm describes a terrible storm that took place in the north Atlantic Ocean in October 1991.  The convergence of several weather patterns formed a massive storm.  A large portion of the book focuses on the final voyage of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat that left out of Gloucester, Massachusetts.  The boat and its crew of six disappeared.  Only later a few on deck debris, including fuel drums, were found either drifting in the ocean or ashore.

 

The book delves into the life of fishermen.  Fishing is a very hard industry.  The crew are out at sea for weeks at a time.  They are paid based upon their catch, which can be significant.  When ashore, however, the crew often go on benders and can go through their money very quickly.  The author introduces us to the crew of the Andrea Gail.  Two fisherman had planned to join the crew, but had a bad feeling and opted out at the last minute.  The captain found substitutes.  The author describes the technical mechanics of fishing and fishing boats, but in language that the lay person can understand.

 

The Andrea Gail went out near the end of the swordfishing season.  It was one of several boats in a fleet to venture out.  When out on the seas, fishing crews from various boats keep in contact with each other and often meet up to provide gear assistance.  The last communication from the Andrea Gail was at 6:00 p.m., on October 28.  The captain had promised to communication with another fishing boat at 11:00 that night.  The communication never occurred.  Due to several other miscommunications, it was days before people realized that the Andrea Gail was gone.

 

There were several other boats out in the Atlantic during this storm as well.  The author introduces the reader to these crews and their rescues.  This was a true adventure story as the reader learns of all the details that must go into an ocean rescue.  The reader meets those brave people who train for years to prepare for such rescues.

 

The Andrea Gail portion of the book was made into the movie also entitled to The Perfect Storm.

 

I loved this book.  It was a real page-turner.

 

Read:  May 22, 2021

 

5 Stars

Books Set in the United States: South Carolina

South of Broad, by Pat Conroy (2009)

South of Broad is a novel narrated by Leopold Bloom King.  His mother was a James Joyce scholar, hence his name.  The novel begins on Bloomsday (June 16), 1969 in Charleston, South Carolina when young Leo is a troubled teenager.

Leo adored his older brother, Steve.  After Steve committed suicide, it was Leo who found his brother’s lifeless body.  No suicide note was found, so his death remained a mystery to the family.

Leo was an under achiever and feels that his mother somehow wished that it was him and not Steve who had died.  Leo’s family is devoutly Catholic ~ a theme that runs through the novel.

Shortly after Steve died, Leo was caught with a large amount of drugs in his pocket. Although the drugs did not belong to him, Leo refused to name the individual to whom the drugs belonged. As a result, Leo was under court probation and community service.

On that fateful day in June 1969, Leo met his new neighbors who were about his age ~ Sheba Poe, the drama queen, and Trevor Poe, who was gay and proud of it, along with their alcoholic mother.  Their father may or may not be in the picture.  He was also ordered by his mother (who was principal in the public high school), to befriend two orphans ~ Niles and Starla.  Then, he attended a luncheon at the ritzy yacht club where he met Chad, and his sister Fraser, and Chad’s girlfriend, Molly.  They were kicked out of their private school and must attend the public school.  These three were of wealthy families with nothing in common with Leo’s middle-class upbringing.

As if that were not enough, integration has come to Charleston, and the new football coach is Black.  Leo it told by both his mother and the new coach to befriend the coach’s son, Ike. Eventually, Leo, Sheba, Trevor, Niles, Starla, Chad, Fraser and Molly become inseperable.  This all seems so improbable.

The novel recounts their trials and tribulations, which the reader learns involves domestic abuse, sexual abuse, the AIDS epidemic, class differences, racial integration, and Hurricane Hugo ~ all of which happens to these teenagers. The novel goes back and forth in time from the late 1960s to the early 2000s.

It was a bit of a mess, with all the “social” issues occurring to the main characters.  The novel would have been more interesting if the author had focused on one or two of these issues, rather than try to discuss them all in one book.

I enjoyed the first 300 pages, but the book went off the rails in the last 200 pages. I finished reading this book at Starbucks.  A young college student saw that I was reading a book by Pat Conroy and asked me about it.  He said that he liked Pat Conroy.  After I finished the book, I gave it to him.

Read: May 19, 2019

3 Stars

Books Set in North America: Texas, USA

Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson (1999)

Isaac’s Storm has been on my “to be read” list for a long time.  I finally picked it up to read just as Hurricane Michael stormed through the Florida panhandle.  In September 1900, when a massive hurricane demolished Galveston, Texas, the art of predicting storms was in its infancy.  Somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000 people were killed in the storm. Weather forecasting has advanced in the past 118 years, and as I write this review, the death toll in Hurricane Michael is still in the single digits.

Erik Larson outlines the history of weather and hurricane forecasting.  He suggests that Christopher Columbus was the first European to have observed hurricanes on his many voyages across the Atlantic.

Isaac Cline wanted to make his mark in the scientific field.  He joined the Signal Corps Weather Service, a precursor to the national Weather Bureau.  He observed weather patterns.  When he was assigned to Galveston, he was still a young man, with a wife and young children.

Very little was known about the dynamics of hurricanes.  Isaac had seen only one hurricane and the common idea was that no major storm would ever hit the coastline of Texas.

By 1900, Galveston was an up-and-coming city with a rivalry with Houston.  It was a very cosmopolitan city with an opera house, public gardens and a lot of wealth.  Nothing could damage its reputation.  A storm was unthinkable.

Isaac loved his job and took meticulous notes on weather patterns that he telegraphed to Washington.  Unbeknownst to him, however, was the bureaucratic snarl and egos that directed the course of the weather service.  Washington was convinced that the “natives” in Cuba did not understand proper weather forecasting, thus imposed a ban on all Cuban communications with respect to a growing storm in late August 1900.  The Cubans believed the storm was headed across the Gulf of Mexico towards Texas.  The weather services’ employees in Cuba pooh-poohed this idea and assured Washington that the pending storm was insignificant.

As a result, no warnings were issued to Isaac in his Galveston post. Additionally, Washington had explicitly forbade use of the word “hurricane” so as not to falsely alarm the citizens of coastal areas.

When the hurricane struck on September 8, 1900 the city was almost completely destroyed. The after effects of the hurricane’s remnants were felt as far as Chicago, New England and the Maritime Provinces.

This book follows the days before the storm, describes the horrors of living through the storm and the days immediately following.  So many people were killed that the streets were literally covered in corpses.  There were so many bodies that many were simply burned for quick disposal.  The heat following the storm accelerated the decomposition of bodies, adding to the horrendous remains of the city.

The city tried to rebuild, but in 1901, oil was discovered just outside of Houston, making that city outshine Galveston.

As with many of Erik Larson’s books, I found this to be a fascinating insight into a this period of American history.

Read: October 12, 2018

4 Stars