Non-Fiction
The Perfect Storm
Mood
Bleak, Tense
Protagonist
The six crewmen of the Andrea Gail, led by captain Billy Tyne, reconstructed from the record since none survived.
Parental Rating
PG-13
Pace
Steady and building, with a slow buildup of lives and weather before the storm hits full force.
In late October 1991, a rare convergence of three weather systems produced a storm of once-in-a-century force in the North Atlantic. The swordfishing boat Andrea Gail, out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, was working the Grand Banks 575 miles from shore when the storm closed in. Sebastian Junger reconstructs the final voyage of her six-man crew, none of whom survived, alongside the Coast Guard rescues, the meteorology, and the fishing economy that sent the boat out in the first place. Working from transcripts, interviews with the families, and the accounts of boats that made it back, Junger builds a portrait of working men against an ocean that gave nothing back.
