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Dark, Salt, Clear: The Life of a Fishing Town
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About This Book
There is the Cornwall Lamorna Ash knew as a child - the idyllic, folklore-rich place where she spent her summer holidays. Then there is the Cornwall she discovers when, feeling increasingly dislocated in London, she moves to Newlyn, a fishing town near Land's End. This Cornwall is messier and harder; it doesn't seem like a place that would welcome strangers. But before long, Lamorna finds herself on a week-long trawler trip with a crew of local fishermen, afforded a rare glimpse into their world, their warmth and their humour. Out on the water, miles from the coast, she learns how fishing requires you to confront who you are and what it is that tethers you to the land. Dark, Salt, Clear is a bracing journey of discovery and a captivating portrait of a community sustained and defined by the sea for centuries.
Reviews
"Ash leaves readers with a lasting impression of the toil, elation, and sadness faced by her subjects."
"With graceful lyricism and endearing humility, Ash gives this rage both voice and face."
"As well as sea words, she peppers her narrative with history, from Cornwall's origin story and tales of various fish riots, to how pilchard fishing was revived in 1981 when the entrepreneur Nick Howell bought the Newlyn Pilchards Works ..."
"Ash captures the color and rhythms of a close-knit community where life, livelihood, and death center on the sea ..."
"Dark, Salt, Clear is an extraordinary debut, a deeply researched and deeply felt work of narrative nonfiction."
"Her direct accounts are wadded between allusions to Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Herman Melville and others, and a mass of detailed local history, mined deeply and purposefully ..."
"The only flaw, though slight, is in the structure of the book."
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