Jamie Rooney with student Gianna Cilley.

Working Waterfront

A survivor’s story: From poverty and abuse to police department chronicled in Black to Blue

Deep into her memoir Black to Blue, Jamie Rooney recounts the steady sexual abuse she endured from her 16-year-old stepbrother. At this point in the book, it’s not the first such violation she’s had to endure. “I can’t believe no one ever picked up on this,” she writes 20-plus years… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A rock ‘n roll novel with a melancholy, humorous heart

Vexation Lullaby By Justin Tussing/Catapult, 2016 Mild-mannered and romantically abandoned doctor Peter Silver is not accustomed to mystery or adventure, but finds himself steeped in both when he trades in his hospital scrubs for a rock tour bus. Enigmatic Dylanesque superstar Jimmy Cross needs a house call (a hotel call,… SEE MORE

Peter Willcox in the wheelhouse of a Greenpeace ship.

Working Waterfront

The dangerous work of bringing a green peace

Greenpeace Captain Macmillan, 2016 Big whales, bigger weather, young men at sea in rickety boats as underdogs in quixotic quests. It’s the stuff of good fiction. It’s also the story of Peter Willcox, who has traveled more than 400,000 miles at the helm of Greenpeace ships, through tropical storms and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Tales from the boatyards

Boatbuilding on Mount Desert Island By Laurie Schreiber The History Press, 2016 In a small, once-isolated Maine community like Mount Desert Island, before it became a destination resort, boatbuilding was a necessity. Everyone lived on an island; roads were few or nonexistent; water was the way to get around the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Topsham: A history from the Abenakis to I-295

Topsham: From the River to the Highlands By Robert C. Williams Just Write Books, Topsham, Maine, 2015 Long before Thomas Purchase in 1628 set up a little trading post in the area known as Pejepscot near the outlet of the Androscoggin River, Abenaki Indians probably ran a village there. Archaeological… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘Things ain’t right’

On the surface, Jon Keller’s novel Of Sea and Cloud is a beautifully rendered story of a small Downeast fishing village losing its traditional way of life. Keller worked as a sternman aboard the South Wind, Oscar Look Jr.’s boat out of South Addison for two years. He learned well… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Remembering a lost fishery, and grandparents

My grandmother Edith Johnson Searles packed sardines in Lubec at a time when that prosperous town hosted 23 sardine (herring) packing plants. My grandfather, Henry Searles, was a native of Canada’s nearby Campobello Island, who moved across the sound to marry my grandmother and live with her in South Lubec.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Vinalhaven’s maritime work remembered in photo

If books about Vinalhaven’s history were acorns, then readers could squirrel away some volumes now to enjoy over winter hibernation. One of those acorns could be a recently published book of photographs, Vinalhaven Island’s Maritime Industries, part of the “Images of America” series from Arcadia Publishing. Cynthia Burns Martin, a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Salmon as witness—and victim—of Maine’s development struggles

The President’s Salmon: Restoring the King of Fish and Its Home Waters Catherine Schmitt Down East Books 2015, hardcover, $22.95 The title of Catherine Schmitt's latest book, The President's Salmon, had me wondering where she was going to take readers. Schmitt cleverly structures the history of Atlantic salmon in the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Phil Crossman’s Vinalhaven Observations is history and opinion

Phil Crossman has a new book out called Observations: A Maine Island, a Century of Newsletters and the Stories Found Between the Lines. His name and writing will be familiar to readers of The Working Waterfront and Island Journal over the years as well as his popular book, Away Happens… SEE MORE