Rough Crossing: An Alaskan Fisherwoman's Memoir

River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize

by Rosemary McGuire

Knowing next to nothing about fishing, Rosemary McGuire signed on to the crew of the Arctic Storm in Homer, Alaska, looking for money and experience. Cold, hard work and starkly sexist harassment were what she found. Here is her story of life on a fishing boat as the only woman crew member. Both an adult coming-of-age tale and a candid look at the Alaskan fishing industry, this is the story of a woman in a man s world. Anyone who has ever longed to sail in heavy seas will relish her account of working in an ancient profession that has changed remarkably little over the course of human history.

"

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2017

Reviews

[saradevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps it is the subject that makes it a bit slow in places, but the raw realness of this autobiography makes it worthwhile.

[Katelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosemary writes about her first year as a fisherwoman as only someone with 15 years of experience in the industry can -her attention to detail and descriptive prose show the years that she worked and paid attention. I often find memoirs to be too heavy handed with telling the lessons learned from a period of time in their life - the author avoids those pitfalls and instead tells an immersive story without over dramatizing it.

[Zenith · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It was the kind of boat you end up on if you don’t know shit.”
“You learn a lot on those kind of boats.”

I was prepared for another book by someone from outside exoticizing the area, the work, and the fishermen. Rosemary doesn’t. She’s on the boat, and she’s working, and it’s hard, hard, hard. Yet her telling of it is a thing of beauty, as rough as the days and nights were.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, now I want to go work on a fishing boat in Alaska...though I'm sure I'd throw up, probably before we left the dock.

[Patricia Linville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent insight into a woman's life on a commercial fishing boat, being a woman in a man's world and just trying to find one's way in a world that isn't easily adaptable.

[Story Circle Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

We're not all cut from the same cloth, and not all of us are brave enough to seek out the specific drum beat that echoes through our bodies. Rosemary McGuire is one woman who had the courage to do just that. But it wasn't easy. She had misgivings and doubts all along the way, and it is these wrestlings that are examined in her book, Rough Crossing.

McGuire spent 15 years as a commercial fisherwoman in Alaska. Rough Crossing is the story of the first year, the one in which she learned much; the one in which hardly anything went right; and the one in which love made things emotionally difficult. It was also a year in which she learned that running away to sea is as much about what you are running away from as what you are running toward.

McGuire, whose father was a fisherman, only knew that she was running away from the "trap" of being a woman who stayed home while her man went out to sea.

The life of an Alaska fisherwoman working on shabby boats well past their prime is not pretty, and McGuire didn't gussie it up. Her way with words is powerful—and beautiful.

...I stood knee-deep in fish on a steel boat, far from the illusions of the bar [where she worked before setting out to fish]. It was little more than a momentary dream that sent me back to coastal Alaska but I was glad I'd followed it. Here, I thought, where everyone else is as eccentric as I am, and the restless water sings to us all.

Despite having to fight sexism, and finding that the adventure she had sought was "sadder, dirtier and harder" than she had expected, McGuire found within her chosen career "a wildness" that satisfied her heart.

McGuire doesn't leave out any of the "sadder, dirtier and harder" life in Rough Crossing. Nor does she stint on the rough language that goes along with it—readers be forewarned. But, for me, McGuire's portrayal of an Alaskan fisherwoman's world is accurate and right, and I loved her vivid descriptions of the sea landscape. Her vulnerability in exposing her often conflicting emotions captured my heart.

by Pat Bean
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women