Reviewed by Rita Radostitz

Lobster fishing is tedious, laborious and slow. Spurts of action occasionally interrupt the monotony, but the arduous routine dominates, and the rewards are few and far between. The same might be said of The Lobster Chronicles, Linda Greenlaw’s book about her life on a small barrier island off the coast of Maine. In Greenlaw’s chronicle of life on Isle au Haut, interesting yarns barely escape drowning in a tiresome ocean of languid prose.

Greenlaw is a single, fortysomething lobster fisherman working a strenuous and dangerous job. Her book is inhabited by the quirky individualists one might expect to find on a New England island with forty-seven full-time residents. Tommy and George, who run the local repair business, usually damage more than they fix. Rita, the nosy neighbor, borrows everything, prompting Greenlaw’s parents to hide behind the sofa when they see her on their porch. The postmistress is so reticent that Greenlaw spends an entire chapter describing just how much she doesn’t say. Some of the stories of the islanders’ foibles are amusing, and some of Greenlaw’s descriptions of the conventions of small-town life are entertaining. Yet they lack the depth and dimension needed to make them feel authentic.

The lobster season Greenlaw depicts is a demanding one. The catch is meager, the weather foul — and then her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer. Understandably, she gets mired in these challenges. Unfortunately, her gloominess sets the tone of the book, making it more depressing than it needs to be.