The Lobster Chronicles : Life On a Very Small Island
by Linda Greenlaw
2003

Did you ever wonder what is must be like to live on an island miles from the mainland with only a hundred people or less all year long? Did you ver wonder what is must be like to be a lobster fisherperson an spend life surviving on the bounty of the sea?

I did. And The Lobster Chronicles answered the questions above and other questions I have posed to myself about ways of life other than country-boy or suburbanite.

The memoir is of Greenlaw's move back to Penobescot Island, off the coast of main, after deep sea fishing for many years and after acquiring an education. Greenlaw decides to reinhabit the island where her folks live and set out to become the sole owner of a lobster boat named The Maddy Belle.

Greenlaw outlines island life from the eyes of a single middle-aged female in a prominently male role. She is not shy about explaining numerous times her want and need for a husband and a family. Three quarters of the way through the book she reveals that her mother has been diagnosed with cancer and turns out to be quite a survivor ( a happy saga indeed!!).

Many of the flaws Greenlaw reveals of island life would not be complaints from me. I would gladly trade her community for my own. Although there are more people on three blocks in my neighborhood than dwell on the whole of the Island, it is difficult to get my suburban neighbors to say hi and smile, much less work towards a common goal such as the islanders have achieved. Suburban Minneapolis if the individualists heaven and society's gulf. The islanders recognize that they are each individuals, yet part of a whole. Maybe they are forced into relying on each other for support, but nontheless it would seem that suburbanites can at least put an effort into feeling like they live in a community, instaed of a bunch of unrelated single houses that just happen to be next to each other.

I would recomend The Lobster Chronicles. It was thoroughly enjoyable, the characters were believeable and eccentric, but had a hard time keeping my constant attention.