New on the Bookshelf: Working the Sea

Working the Sea is a true American tale of one Maine fisherman’s life, featuring a collection of memories and teachings from a master storyteller. A true Downeast Yankee, author Wendell Seavey traces his family lineage back to the 1600′s when his ancestors first landed on Seavey Island (now the site of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard), and comes from a long line of Maine lobsterman with an unusual gift – psychic premonitions. After serving in the army at age 23 and deciding on a whim to travel across the US,  Seavey engages in psychic and spiritual activity, encounters a host of counterculture characters, and even develops his own ecological philosophy. Seavey shares practical lessons about approaching life’s “insurmountable obstacles” and getting past them, and about his transformation from a “fisherman-user” to a “fisherman-ecologist,” striving to be part of the cycle of life.

This is the second edition of this book, featuring never-before-published stories, including the author’s two-year sojourn in Texas and experience as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

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Check out this recent stellar review of Working the Sea in The Working Waterfront:

Don’t be fooled. This is not some quaint memoir of a lobsterman telling tales. It shatters any stereotypes. The first portion of the book sputters like a stubborn motor, but when it gets going, hang on — it’s hard to put down. Wendell Seavey’s stories run the gamut from his pre-Vietnam time in the Army to his 41 years of fishing exploits, to (fasten your seatbelt now) a UFO sighting over a Penobscot Bay island.

What one comes away with is respect for Seavey’s maverick lifestyle and his willingness to try new ventures and ideas. When not fishing, Seavey studies t’ai chi, astrology and Thoreau, and undergoes a Native American firewalk.

His conversion to an ecological mindset comes from meeting anthropologist Richard Grossinger, and many conversations about fishing and humans’ role on earth. Seavey writes, “If we could see the ocean bottom, these strange and wonderful creatures would be like the insects working their way through the soil, shellfish that evolved millions of years ago. This gave some perspective on the lobster fishing industry and made fishing less like factory work and more like prayer.”

Seavey has premonitions of events, calling them psychic abilities — a family trait, he says. He experiences his father’s presence one night, prior to being told his father died that evening; he dreams of his Army unit being decimated in Vietnam, and later, its newer recruits were.

Two friends hatch the idea to start the College of the Atlantic in Seavey’s kitchen, leading him to give lectures on fishing there. Another turn brings him to work as activities director in a nursing home. This is a fine book, yet I wished the pieces had been grouped under themes, rather than putting them all on the table at once. The appendix of his fishing Land Marks at the end adds a nice touch.

Seavey’s sense of place remains his anchor: “We Downeasters are all for adventure and seeing the world and testing our mettle, but home is home, and once you leave the island, let alone cross the state line, you are in purgatory until you get back.”

Read the original article here.