The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea - Softcover

Junger, Sebastian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393337014 ISBN 13: 9780393337013

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009

Synopsis

"There is nothing imaginary about Junger's book; it is all terrifyingly, awesomely real." ―Los Angeles Times

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." In a book that has become a classic, Sebastian Junger explores the history of the fishing industry, the science of storms, and the candid accounts of the people whose lives the storm touched. The Perfect Storm is a real-life thriller that makes us feel like we've been caught, helpless, in the grip of a force of nature beyond our understanding or control.

Winner of the American Library Association's 1998 Alex Award.

8 pages of illustrations

About this title

About the Author

Sebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Storm, A Death in Belmont, Fire, War, Tribe, and Freedom. As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world, and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award. He lives in New York City and Cape Cod.

Reviews

*Starred Review* Junger’s most recent book, War (2010), which recounts his experiences with combat troops in war-torn Afghanistan, embodies both his ongoing fascination with life “on the tip of the spear” and his public image as a square-jawed danger-seeker. But it was The Perfect Storm (1997), written while he was a freelance tree-climber with only a notepad and an idea, that put him on the map. The outline is well known because the events made the news, because the book became a best-seller, and because the book became a major motion picture with A-list talent. In October 1991, a freak convergence of weather—a storm from the west, a cold front from the north, and a hurricane from the south—resulted in the Halloween Storm, a once-in-a-century gale that wreaked havoc on the North Atlantic. As befits a story so huge, Junger follows a diverse array of people through it, including fishermen, sailors, and rescue personnel. But it’s the story of the doomed swordfish boat Andrea Gail, whose crew was never found, that is the most compelling, and it is here that Junger shows the strength of his craft. In re-creating what might have happened to the six-man crew, he seamlessly weaves known facts with everything from interviews with survivors of other storms to explanations of fishing-boat architecture and the science behind drowning, with results so unforgettable that we can well imagine their final moments. But the Andrea Gail is not the whole story. There are other sword boats, the beleaguered sloop Satori with its crew of three, and a diverse array of rescuers whose actions are nothing short of heroic. There is a wealth of information here about the practice and business of fishing and about weather, sea, and people, but Junger shapes it all with an almost novelistic sense of pace and timing. Like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air (1997), about disaster on Mount Everest, it’s a thrilling, sobering, and extremely accessible book that may well serve as the point of entry for readers curious about its subject. Rarely are works of nonfiction so deeply affecting. --Keir Graff

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393337014
• ISBN 13: 9780393337013
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248