Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 974.45
EAN num: 9780393050325
ISBN number: 0393050327
Label: W. W. Norton & Company
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: 2000-06
Publishing house: W. W. Norton & Company
Sale Popularity Level: 386382
Studio: W. W. Norton & Company
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The phenomenal bestseller, in a specially priced hardcover with movie-art bellyband to accompany the mahor motion picture to be released June 30, 2000 and starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Diane Lane, and directed by Wolfgang Petersen.
'Drifting down on swimmers is standard rescue procedure, but the seas are so violent that Buschor keeps getting flung out of reach. There are times when he's thirty feet higher than the men trying to rescue him. . . . [I]f the boat's not going to Buschor, Buschor's going to have to go to it. SWIM! they scream over the rail. SWIM! Buschor rips off his gloves and hood and starts swimming for his life.'
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.' When it struck in October 1991, there was virtually no warning. 'She's comm' on, boys, and she's comm' on strong, radioed Captain Billy Tyne of the Andrea Gail off the coast of Nova Scotia, and soon afterward the boat and its crew of six disappeared without a trace.
In a narrative taut with the fury of the elements, Sebastian Junger takes us deep into the heart of the storm, depicting with vivid detail the courage, terror, and awe that surface in such a gale. Junger illuminates a world of swordfishermen consumed by the dangerous but lucrative trade of offshore fishing--'a young man's game, a single man's game'--and gives us a glimpse of their lives in the tough fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts; he recreates the last moments of the Andrea Gail crew and recounts the daring high-seas rescues that made heroes of some and victims of others; and he weaves together 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 leaves us with the taste of salt air on our tongues and a breathless sense of what it feels like to be caught, helpless, in the grip of a force of nature beyond our understanding or control. We know on the strength of this stark and compelling journey into the dark heart of nature, what it feels like to drown.
Amazon.com Review:
The unabridged audio version of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, read by Richard M. Davidson, moves in the same haunting fashion as the deadly storm referenced in the title. Opening slowly, the story lulls you with a false sense of calm, behind which looms an inexorable power. Almost imperceptibly the drama begins to build and before you know what's hit you, the sheer force of the cumulative events has swept you into a maelstrom of tragic human consequence.
Junger's carefully researched and sympathetic book is a mesmerizing chronicle of man's struggle against nature. Davidson's unassuming, slightly nasal tone subtly captures the drollery of the salty New England attitude. 'People often get premonitions when they do jobs that could get them killed ... the trick is knowing when to listen to them.' He makes listening to The Perfect Storm seem like you're bearing witness to a natural disaster. You're powerless to help, but the awesome spectacle has such an emotional hold that it's nearly impossible to turn away. Start this tape too late in the evening and you may be in for a dark and stormy night. (Running time: nine hours, six cassettes) --George Laney
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Rated by buyers 
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Does everyone know this book is a hoax? Am I the only member of the reading public who didn't know this?
It's a terrible book, written by someone who hates reading for people who hate reading in a patronizing and revolting endeavor to interest people who hate reading in reading. Yuk. The author has a lot in common with the author of The Lovely Bones: both terrible writers and cynical pompous uneducated jerks who revere nothing but their own ability to get one over on someone.
Rated by buyers 
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`The Perfect Storm` started out as an article in `Outside` magazine, where Junger was an occasional free-lance contributor, although his day job was a lumber jack and waiting tables. When he wasn't slinging an axe or chops, he expanded the original article into a book, his first, published in 1997 when he was about 34 years old. It did well on the New York Times list and quickly went on to a big-budget star-powered movie. The natives of Gloucester, the New England fishing town at the center of the story, gave it a positive reception, which for Junger was its highest praise. In fact it made some of them famous, Linda Greenlaw went on to write her own book The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey.
Stylistically the sucess of the book is remarkable because the final moments of Andrea Gail, the climax of the book, are a mystery. Jungler says it was "journalism by analogy". But the effect works well by lending the account authenticity while engaging the readers imagination to fill in the blanks, making it all the more terrifying. In addition it lends a great deal of sympathy and compassion to the friends and relatives of the dead, who also live with the unknown and terrors of the minds eye. Most non-fiction authors would have no problem interjecting some fictional dialog or scenes to make the book more readable, but it would have been a lie, the truth is unknown and it showed a great deal of integrity on Jungers part to take the high but more risky and difficult road.
Of course the book is about the storm, and not just the Andrea Gail. Probably the most riveting part of the book concerns the Air National Guard helicopter that forced landed in 100 foot seas. The details of this are well documented and Junger is thus able to sustain a strong narrative without falling back on tangents, or "analogy," as he does in the Andrea Gai story - which happens to make up four-fifths of the book. Thus some of the most popular complaints by readers is that it doesn't flow well and has awkward anecdotal tangents breaking up the storyline. However for anyone with a natural curiosity with how things work (fishing, boats, rescue), this type of braided narrative - common in creative non-fiction these days - is perfectly normal.
Overall I'm impressed with the books integrity and compassion. The writing is workman-like, dense like a magazine article but not stylistically original, except for the effective use of journalistic analogy to tell a story.
Rated by buyers -
Junger recounts the relentless ferocity of the Storm of the Century that hit North America's eastern seaboard during 1991. This is a breath-taking, riveting tale of human courage in the face of the most devastating forces of nature.
Rated by buyers -
The book ably reconstructs the terrifying facts, feelings and tragedy of the fishing boat Andrea Gail and her six-man crew, which disappeared during a killing storm of mythic proportions. Tragically, the bodies were never found, so nobody survived to tell the story. The book weaves a compelling patchwork around the sinking itself--the ship's colourful crew, their manic drives, lives and backgrounds. There are fascinating details of meterology, navigation and commercial fishing. We peer into the physics of rogue waves, the horrifying physiology of drowning, the agonies of search and rescue. We feel the adrenal charge of risk-fishing, the frailty of humans pitted against Nature, the lash of wind, the brine, the towering waves, the violent pitch and toss of the sea, told with the crackling force and energy of a very first novel. The writing is tight, plain, elegant and restrained. Junger is ever the journalist, always tethered to his materials, never sensational, never indulging himself, or setting free the novelist. Perhaps his stern, disciplined self-control is his greatest triumph. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would gladly read it again.
Rated by buyers -
This book is very vivid in its descriptions of the storm and the activities leading up to it. The author has done an excellent job of making the reader feel that he/she is involved in the action. Very exciting and emotional read.
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