My River Chronicles: Rediscovering the Work that Built America; A Personal and Historical Journey

When journalist Jessica DuLong ditched her dotcom desk job to ply the waters of the Hudson River as engineer of a rusty antique fireboat, she found a taste of home in a maritime community that was quickly disappearing. In this heartfelt and marvelously illuminating book, she weaves together stories of life on the water with tales from Hudson Valley history.

Published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic voyage up the river that bears his name, My River Chronicles is a journey with an extraordinary guide. Once Jessica DuLong started toiling in the engine room of Fireboat John J. Harvey, she never looked back. The more time she spent with the boat’s finely crafted machinery, the more she wondered what America is losing in our shift away from hands-on work. Her service pumping water to fight blazes at Ground Zero following the September 11, 2001 attacks reinforced in her mind the importance of blue-collar skills. Masterfully grounding her own experiences with narratives from the river’s rich history, she introduces us to seventeenth-century explorers, nineteenth-century canal builders, and a cast of present-day characters—including a salvage diver hunting sunken tugboats, a foundryman who casts iron in the old way, and a distiller who crafts bourbon from local corn—that reminds us how colorful and dynamic the Hudson continues to be. What emerges is a celebration of labor (and leisure) from a woman who straddles blue-collar and white-collar worlds and turns a phrase as deftly as she does a wrench.

Jessica DuLong, a United States Coast Guard–licensed Merchant Marine Officer, is one of the world’s only female fireboat engineers. She is also a journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek International, Rolling Stone, Psychology Today, Parenting, and numerous other publications. This is her first book. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.