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Salmon in the Seine: Alaskan Memories of Life, Death, & Everything In-Between
One moment eighteen-year-old Norris Comer is throwing his high school graduation cap in the air and setting off for Alaska to earn money, and the next he's comforting a wounded commercial fisherman who's desperate for the mercy of a rescue helicopter. From landlubber to deckhand, Comer's harrowing adventures at sea and during a solo search in the Denali backcountry for wolves provide a transformative bridge from adolescence to adulthood.
232 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 10, 2023
Excellent! A poignant story that takes us to the little-known world of salmon fishing in Alaska. With a wry sense of humor, Comer serves as our ingenuous yet astute Virgil guiding us through the perils, heartaches, and thrills of this formidable occupation. Our narrator is young but possesses the eyes and ears of a sage as we learn about the traumatic vestiges of the Exxon Valdez oil, the precarious nature of the next catch, the gritty underworld of salmon fishing, and, yes, even love. A must-read for anyone who loves Alaska, salmon, the human spirit, and the natural world.
November 12, 2022
“Salmon in the Seine,” by Norris Comer, is a memoir of the author’s Alaskan adventure. Norris is an eighteen-year-old from Portland, Oregon, looking for an exciting way to earn cash in the summer of 2008. He hears there is good money in working fishing boats in Alaska. With optimism but no experience, he flies north, reaching Cordova, a small town south of Anchorage on Alaska’s coast. Cordova is a remote fishing “village” with an insular but generally friendly population of longtime locals, visitors like Comer, and Native Americans. The town is Norris’s destination based on the recommendation of a high school teacher where he has a temporary place to stay but no leads on where or how to become a fishing vessel crew member.
“Salmon in the Seine” is Comer’s start-to-finish Alaskan summer tale. It starts with his arrival, then his job hunt. After repeatedly asking to be taken on various fishing vessels (hounding the docks daily and putting up “hire me” posters), he finally secures a spot with two other young men on a fishing vessel run by an experienced captain. Comer is shown the ropes, literally, on how to operate seines, giant net devices that scoop up fish during the carefully controlled salmon season. Through Comer’s eyes, we learn the bottom rung of boat life. We learn about commercial seining operations, how captains of boats line up for runs along productive spawning routes, about the dangers of the machinery, about the clothing and the lingo. In short, we get to be “the new kid” ourselves.
Comer’s summer memoir is not just about fishing; although there are a lot of interesting things to learn about the industry and the financial and environmental stresses on it, Comer details his relationships between himself and the other “mates” his age. We learn about Comer’s relationships with the captains of his boats and the elbow-rubbing among the captains themselves. We learn how hard the job is—it is physically exhausting, demanding a monstrous number of daily calories—and what the guys do during their “wait” time between runs (lots of video game playing). Norris has a romantic interest that summer as well as a love of the great outdoors, including a trip to Denali after the salmon season is over. There is danger in the form of weather, fatigue, rogue whales, unexplainable equipment failures and plain poor judgment.
Comer’s writing style is purposefully energetic and, for lack of a better word, “youthful,” which is not meant as a criticism; the author may be more than a decade removed from the summer of 2008, but the younger version of himself narrating events does justice to what an eighteen-year-old suburban transplant would sound like if plopped onto a seining vessel. Given a multi-generational difference between me, the reviewer, and the author’s 2008 version of himself, it took a little getting used to the book’s vernacular and Comer’s enthusiasm, but not much. I’ve been reviewing books for a few years now and the first yardstick I use is whether, night after night, I want to keep picking up the book or not (as opposed to fulfilling the obligation of reviewing). I’m happy to report that it was the former; the details Comer provides about life on a working boat and the particulars of the lives of the fishermen (both on and off the water) were interesting and often quite entertaining. The story appealed: for instance, would a certain captain’s love of boxed wine lead to calamity? Would the narrator’s choice of work boots, different than his mates’, lead to problems? In short, I was happy to pick up the book night after night.
Comer does a good job relating his summer venture. There is little repetition, and the way his adventure plays out, its twists and turns happen naturally. There is enough real life detail (poor weather, malfunctioning refrigeration units, techy diesel engines) to give the book grounding; some of Norris’s adventures are very down to earth, like trying to find an open laundry mat or a place to bunk for the night given his semi-itinerant status. These bits aren’t boring, and their inclusion keeps his tale from becoming uncomfortably larger than life. Mr. Comer’s memoir feels “true”; he has created an entertaining work with a little hubris, a good helping of humility, and a lot of hopeful enthusiasm.
“Salmon in the Seine” is Comer’s start-to-finish Alaskan summer tale. It starts with his arrival, then his job hunt. After repeatedly asking to be taken on various fishing vessels (hounding the docks daily and putting up “hire me” posters), he finally secures a spot with two other young men on a fishing vessel run by an experienced captain. Comer is shown the ropes, literally, on how to operate seines, giant net devices that scoop up fish during the carefully controlled salmon season. Through Comer’s eyes, we learn the bottom rung of boat life. We learn about commercial seining operations, how captains of boats line up for runs along productive spawning routes, about the dangers of the machinery, about the clothing and the lingo. In short, we get to be “the new kid” ourselves.
Comer’s summer memoir is not just about fishing; although there are a lot of interesting things to learn about the industry and the financial and environmental stresses on it, Comer details his relationships between himself and the other “mates” his age. We learn about Comer’s relationships with the captains of his boats and the elbow-rubbing among the captains themselves. We learn how hard the job is—it is physically exhausting, demanding a monstrous number of daily calories—and what the guys do during their “wait” time between runs (lots of video game playing). Norris has a romantic interest that summer as well as a love of the great outdoors, including a trip to Denali after the salmon season is over. There is danger in the form of weather, fatigue, rogue whales, unexplainable equipment failures and plain poor judgment.
Comer’s writing style is purposefully energetic and, for lack of a better word, “youthful,” which is not meant as a criticism; the author may be more than a decade removed from the summer of 2008, but the younger version of himself narrating events does justice to what an eighteen-year-old suburban transplant would sound like if plopped onto a seining vessel. Given a multi-generational difference between me, the reviewer, and the author’s 2008 version of himself, it took a little getting used to the book’s vernacular and Comer’s enthusiasm, but not much. I’ve been reviewing books for a few years now and the first yardstick I use is whether, night after night, I want to keep picking up the book or not (as opposed to fulfilling the obligation of reviewing). I’m happy to report that it was the former; the details Comer provides about life on a working boat and the particulars of the lives of the fishermen (both on and off the water) were interesting and often quite entertaining. The story appealed: for instance, would a certain captain’s love of boxed wine lead to calamity? Would the narrator’s choice of work boots, different than his mates’, lead to problems? In short, I was happy to pick up the book night after night.
Comer does a good job relating his summer venture. There is little repetition, and the way his adventure plays out, its twists and turns happen naturally. There is enough real life detail (poor weather, malfunctioning refrigeration units, techy diesel engines) to give the book grounding; some of Norris’s adventures are very down to earth, like trying to find an open laundry mat or a place to bunk for the night given his semi-itinerant status. These bits aren’t boring, and their inclusion keeps his tale from becoming uncomfortably larger than life. Mr. Comer’s memoir feels “true”; he has created an entertaining work with a little hubris, a good helping of humility, and a lot of hopeful enthusiasm.
November 13, 2022
I've read very few memoirs before, but reader, this one is worth it! What is that saying about "a reader lives a thousand lives..."? This is one I was happy to live vicariously, while curled comfortably in my bed, mug of hot cocoa in hand. I wouldn't have thought myself as interested in learning about fishing in Alaska, but Comer's descriptions had me googling YouTube videos of the processes he describes, as well as holding my breath when things got dicey.
Comer comes across as extremely genuine and relatable, if a bit more poetic than I'm used to. But what kid, after reading a ton of literature in their youth, doesn't yearn for a grand adventure - to go out into the world seeking some sort of meaning to explain the incredible accident that is life?
Reading this book takes me back to being 18 again, and thinking how I can recapture some of that adventurous spirit back into my "boring adult life," ha. Certainly a trip to the Alaskan wilderness is now on my bucket list.
Thank you for sharing your story Norris!
Comer comes across as extremely genuine and relatable, if a bit more poetic than I'm used to. But what kid, after reading a ton of literature in their youth, doesn't yearn for a grand adventure - to go out into the world seeking some sort of meaning to explain the incredible accident that is life?
Reading this book takes me back to being 18 again, and thinking how I can recapture some of that adventurous spirit back into my "boring adult life," ha. Certainly a trip to the Alaskan wilderness is now on my bucket list.
Thank you for sharing your story Norris!
July 21, 2025
The book opens with the kind of blood and chaos that is both horrific and in the panapobly of world events a trifle... to everyone else except those that were there whose lives were changed by the physical and emotional proximity to it. I think this is the core of a good coming of age story. Comers trip north to Alaska at the end of high school is the story of an intrepid young man that falls in line with the classics of early 20th century Jack London type stories but with the much needed 100 year update. For those of us that live in the Pacific Northwest, going north to Alaska is as much an idea as it is a reality. Sure, someone you know goes, or a friend of a friend but for most of us, most of the time it's more of a gold rush fantasy. Something that perhaps seems more accessible back then when the contiguous pacific northwest was almost as wild. With tech, coffee and airplanes going up to commercial fish as a young man with nothing but a few bucks in his pocket and a backpack full of gumption just doesn't seem like the way we do things these days.
What unfolds is a beautiful portrait of a classic tale of a young man really stretching his legs for the first time. No ones watching but his boss and his crewmates. No coaches, no parents, no safetynet, just the expectations of man thrust on him for the first time and the realization of strengths and limitations of the toolbox one has made for themselves by this first time in their life.
His prose of Alaska and fishing illustrate the beauty and the gore and the violence and the peace all wound up in pulling fish from the sea.
What unfolds is a beautiful portrait of a classic tale of a young man really stretching his legs for the first time. No ones watching but his boss and his crewmates. No coaches, no parents, no safetynet, just the expectations of man thrust on him for the first time and the realization of strengths and limitations of the toolbox one has made for themselves by this first time in their life.
His prose of Alaska and fishing illustrate the beauty and the gore and the violence and the peace all wound up in pulling fish from the sea.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews