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2182 kHz
By all accounts, Henry Seine should have packed it in long ago, certainly before he started scanning marine distress channels for fun. But sixteen-hour days spent hauling heavy cargo aboard tugs and icebreakers along the frozen arctic offshore (not to mention smoking copious amounts of Cannabis indica) can warp a man’s sense of reality. Desperate for real human contact, he tunes the sideband radio to 2182 kHz (twenty-one eighty-two kilohertz), the international distress channel, in the vague hope of finding someone he can save.
Soon, though, even the paycheck that fattens his wallet each season isn’t enough to fix his interest. Seine journeys south, but weathers a capsizing that leaves his fellow crewmen dead. Unable to break from his old habits, and haunted by the ghosts of dead shipmates, he flies north for another season. One day, idly monitoring 2182, Seine catches a fading distress call from somewhere out in the circumpolar twilight. A scientist named Louis Moneymaker is trapped alone on an ice floe that threatens to melt beneath his feet. Cobbling together a motley rescue team–the frostbitten Wolf, a six-foot-eight Russian known as Big Man, a tattooed Eskimo nicknamed the Buff, and an intrepid, dark-eyed sailor named Julia–Seine travels farther north than he’s ever gone, determined to save Moneymaker and exorcise his demons in one grand sweep.
2182 kHz combines the white-knuckle adventure of The Perfect Storm with the dark humor and deadpan wit of Chuck Palahniuk to create an absorbing tale of search-and-rescue. David Masiel introduces us to a compelling antihero who is only one step away from either destruction or salvation.
Soon, though, even the paycheck that fattens his wallet each season isn’t enough to fix his interest. Seine journeys south, but weathers a capsizing that leaves his fellow crewmen dead. Unable to break from his old habits, and haunted by the ghosts of dead shipmates, he flies north for another season. One day, idly monitoring 2182, Seine catches a fading distress call from somewhere out in the circumpolar twilight. A scientist named Louis Moneymaker is trapped alone on an ice floe that threatens to melt beneath his feet. Cobbling together a motley rescue team–the frostbitten Wolf, a six-foot-eight Russian known as Big Man, a tattooed Eskimo nicknamed the Buff, and an intrepid, dark-eyed sailor named Julia–Seine travels farther north than he’s ever gone, determined to save Moneymaker and exorcise his demons in one grand sweep.
2182 kHz combines the white-knuckle adventure of The Perfect Storm with the dark humor and deadpan wit of Chuck Palahniuk to create an absorbing tale of search-and-rescue. David Masiel introduces us to a compelling antihero who is only one step away from either destruction or salvation.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 19, 2008
a good sea story, dark humor made me laugh more than I expected.
July 29, 2012
Good fast read, good use of literary devices. This was the author's first novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
May 4, 2010
The main gripe of other reviewers seems to be that the book fails to fit into a particular genre. So what? I did not enjoy Masiel's other book, but decided to give this one a try and thoroughly enjoyed it. The scene of the tug's knockdown is horrifyingly realistic and artfully described. Seine's attempt to grapple with his own demons and the lure of the north strikes me as authentic if somewhat Kafkayesque. If you are looking for a purely nautical thriller that fits neatly into the genre this is probably not for you. If you want a tautly written novel about one man's experience , I recommend it.
December 1, 2020
Mariner must read
December 21, 2021
“She frowned at him . . . and stared with eyes dulled by drugs and grizzled old men who’d lost their virginity in WWII.”
Henry Seine is a long-timer, twenty plus years working the Alaska oil fields, manning the ships that move the cargo and the materials that build the oil camps. And he does this mostly during the frozen “winter” months, and now, as this novel opens, his marriage is over, his job is in jeopardy, he’s burned out, he’s close to a nervous breakdown, and now he’s been transferred to the worst job in this part of business. Henry will end up as a gravel hauler in a tug across the rough and freezing Alaskan waters.
Tired and fed up, he finally quits his job to ship out on the “Fearless” with the crazy “Chemist” and his crew. Henry quickly finds out that Chemist is obsessively in love with Julia, who ships with the “Vigilant”, which is the sister ship of the “Fearless”. Julia is somebody whom Henry himself will eventually have a complicated relationship with later on in the novel.
Unfortunately, Chemist really IS crazy, and that bad luck seems to follow Henry wherever he goes. This bad luck will come back again to strike at Henry, and the crew of the “Fearless”, as it tows the barge “Early Warning” through the Gulf of Alaska during a gale storm. And soon enough, Henry is alone again.
During all of this Henry may be losing his grip on reality, as he is now constantly seeing dead people. Not just any dead people, but only those that have died while being associated with Henry. And he, and the reader, are never quite sure if these visions, and discussions, with the dead are real, or are just hallucinatory. And through most of the mid-to-latter parts of this novel Henry is getting a signal from Dr. Moneymaker, or something like that, on the short-range radio. It seems that Moneymaker’s expedition was on a glacier which is now breaking apart, and now is besieged by polar bears. However, the signal, on 2182 kHz, is highly erratic and weak, but, every so often the signal becomes stronger, but no less erratic.
As the winter season ends, Henry is back with his original crew, and while the camp of Bainbride Island is being dismantled for the “summer”, and after finding that the company bigwigs don’t listen, and the Coast Guard won’t listen, Henry decides to create his own rescue operation from associates that are looking for something to do, and, well, just because.
While it didn’t bother me, this is an extremely episodic novel, so there is no sustained sense of suspense. In fact, while exciting in parts, it often reads more like a series of linked novelettes and novellas. Much like watching episodes of a series of “Ice Flow Tuggers”. Also, many of the characters are more of types than being fully rounded people, because, in reality, this is really Henry’s coming-of-age story. This is because, after a lifetime of drifting as a nomad in his own life, he’s finally about to go through his personal trial-by-fire, and he will have to start focusing on entering another phase of his life. If he doesn’t quite succeed in this by the novel’s end, well, life has always been a series of growing and maturing events.
On the negative side, this is a book that is really in need of a glossary, as way too much of the novel, and it's shipping lingo just goes way over my head. Also, for those that are offended by such things, this is a novel with some extremely rough language that is often used very freely, and very liberally.
This review of 2182 Khz by David Masiel is based on the Thorndike Press large print version, and it was a joy to read, and it is a sturdy enough book that will allow it to be re-read over and over again, just perfect for libraries.
Henry Seine is a long-timer, twenty plus years working the Alaska oil fields, manning the ships that move the cargo and the materials that build the oil camps. And he does this mostly during the frozen “winter” months, and now, as this novel opens, his marriage is over, his job is in jeopardy, he’s burned out, he’s close to a nervous breakdown, and now he’s been transferred to the worst job in this part of business. Henry will end up as a gravel hauler in a tug across the rough and freezing Alaskan waters.
Tired and fed up, he finally quits his job to ship out on the “Fearless” with the crazy “Chemist” and his crew. Henry quickly finds out that Chemist is obsessively in love with Julia, who ships with the “Vigilant”, which is the sister ship of the “Fearless”. Julia is somebody whom Henry himself will eventually have a complicated relationship with later on in the novel.
Unfortunately, Chemist really IS crazy, and that bad luck seems to follow Henry wherever he goes. This bad luck will come back again to strike at Henry, and the crew of the “Fearless”, as it tows the barge “Early Warning” through the Gulf of Alaska during a gale storm. And soon enough, Henry is alone again.
During all of this Henry may be losing his grip on reality, as he is now constantly seeing dead people. Not just any dead people, but only those that have died while being associated with Henry. And he, and the reader, are never quite sure if these visions, and discussions, with the dead are real, or are just hallucinatory. And through most of the mid-to-latter parts of this novel Henry is getting a signal from Dr. Moneymaker, or something like that, on the short-range radio. It seems that Moneymaker’s expedition was on a glacier which is now breaking apart, and now is besieged by polar bears. However, the signal, on 2182 kHz, is highly erratic and weak, but, every so often the signal becomes stronger, but no less erratic.
As the winter season ends, Henry is back with his original crew, and while the camp of Bainbride Island is being dismantled for the “summer”, and after finding that the company bigwigs don’t listen, and the Coast Guard won’t listen, Henry decides to create his own rescue operation from associates that are looking for something to do, and, well, just because.
While it didn’t bother me, this is an extremely episodic novel, so there is no sustained sense of suspense. In fact, while exciting in parts, it often reads more like a series of linked novelettes and novellas. Much like watching episodes of a series of “Ice Flow Tuggers”. Also, many of the characters are more of types than being fully rounded people, because, in reality, this is really Henry’s coming-of-age story. This is because, after a lifetime of drifting as a nomad in his own life, he’s finally about to go through his personal trial-by-fire, and he will have to start focusing on entering another phase of his life. If he doesn’t quite succeed in this by the novel’s end, well, life has always been a series of growing and maturing events.
On the negative side, this is a book that is really in need of a glossary, as way too much of the novel, and it's shipping lingo just goes way over my head. Also, for those that are offended by such things, this is a novel with some extremely rough language that is often used very freely, and very liberally.
This review of 2182 Khz by David Masiel is based on the Thorndike Press large print version, and it was a joy to read, and it is a sturdy enough book that will allow it to be re-read over and over again, just perfect for libraries.
January 5, 2026
It is an adventure story without an adventure as our protagonist is lost, found, and finding while working on ships in the arctic.
There is a persistent sense of understatement about the book that is its excellence. A different book would set this as a Boy's Own novel of hard men and the sea. A still other book would emphasize the unreal comedy and unrealistically real characters, delighting in Booker bait. This is different. I think that it should be much better known, but I see why it is not. At the risk of committing too much praise, it is like Hemingway and Faulkner in a fistfight, where clever phrase and ornate structure were stripped back to the foundation. That makes it difficult to describe. I want to lean into the fun and funny surrealist touches, but those are clearly not the point. Neither is the sort of hard man struggle and shipboard life, where the sailor is too touched by the sea to manage on land.
The story is filled with disaster of various forms, yet consistently funny without making that silly. It is full of impressive, lingering images, unreal and affecting. And boy, do we have some screwed up humans on display.
The weaknesses are that sometimes the work gets too technical in its descriptions, or I would have to re-read sections and still had a weak grasp as to the specific plot events. The book lingers in a sort of Difficult White Man character space that is out of fashion and sometimes inaccessible, complete with attempts at critiques of sexism and bigotry that do not make a full chord.
I came back to this one having loved it when I first read it, then looked at my shelf wondering if it held up. It does. I do not love it as much as I did the first time I read it, but in the stylistic realm it feels like a road not taken for literature and while the blurb feels like a great big pack of lies, the story has it, in a multitude of ways.
There is a persistent sense of understatement about the book that is its excellence. A different book would set this as a Boy's Own novel of hard men and the sea. A still other book would emphasize the unreal comedy and unrealistically real characters, delighting in Booker bait. This is different. I think that it should be much better known, but I see why it is not. At the risk of committing too much praise, it is like Hemingway and Faulkner in a fistfight, where clever phrase and ornate structure were stripped back to the foundation. That makes it difficult to describe. I want to lean into the fun and funny surrealist touches, but those are clearly not the point. Neither is the sort of hard man struggle and shipboard life, where the sailor is too touched by the sea to manage on land.
The story is filled with disaster of various forms, yet consistently funny without making that silly. It is full of impressive, lingering images, unreal and affecting. And boy, do we have some screwed up humans on display.
The weaknesses are that sometimes the work gets too technical in its descriptions, or I would have to re-read sections and still had a weak grasp as to the specific plot events. The book lingers in a sort of Difficult White Man character space that is out of fashion and sometimes inaccessible, complete with attempts at critiques of sexism and bigotry that do not make a full chord.
I came back to this one having loved it when I first read it, then looked at my shelf wondering if it held up. It does. I do not love it as much as I did the first time I read it, but in the stylistic realm it feels like a road not taken for literature and while the blurb feels like a great big pack of lies, the story has it, in a multitude of ways.
September 9, 2020
I definitely enjoyed this and Masiel's other novel, thus the 4-star rating. Qualifies as an unique reading experience for me. The consistent undercurrent of intensity and misery in the environment, characters and plot are well written. In contrast, the dark or gallows humor or lighter observations (character Wanless for example) definitely stand out without being out of place. Overall, it took me to an extremely unique setting within a largely unpredictable storyline.
Off-topic, but my other observation is how totally clueless I must be regarding nautical terminology and/or imagery as I literally I had no idea what 98% of the terms utilized (aside from port or starboard ..ha) frequently in the book were or meant. Which is fine, it felt authentic, although imagining the scenarios as they took place was definitely hit and miss.
Off-topic, but my other observation is how totally clueless I must be regarding nautical terminology and/or imagery as I literally I had no idea what 98% of the terms utilized (aside from port or starboard ..ha) frequently in the book were or meant. Which is fine, it felt authentic, although imagining the scenarios as they took place was definitely hit and miss.
September 25, 2021
I give this 5 stars for anyone working in the marine industry. Even if you just work blue collar, exposed to weather, hate your job, lol! David creates a story of a rig worker in the Arctic tundra... that is actually hilarious from the first few pages. You'll laugh, get worried, and feel the pain. I'd rate 4 stars if you're unrelated to the life but still looking for a great story.
August 29, 2020
Super exciting book. Frightening and fun.
December 5, 2012
This was a sort of Smilla's Sense of Snow meets The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea. It's a genre-bending, literary, character-focused novel with an action plot(!). A rare bird indeed. The author handles tension well and pens some brilliantly written images. One in particular, detailing a shocking discovery in the wheelhouse of a salvaged ship, I won't soon forget.
Michael Seine (pronounced "sane"--coincidence?) leaves his wife each summer to work in the oil business up in the night-less, tree-less expanses of icy wasteland along the northern Alaskan coast. The pay is great, but when Seine's wife tires of his long absences and ultimately leaves him, he finds himself drawn back to the Arctic, perhaps for good. However, on the job he becomes an infamous "lightning rod of doom", haunted by the men who have died around him, even though Seine himself somehow manages to escape each mishap unscathed.
One day, while monitoring the 2182 Khz emergency channel, he intercepts a distress call from a scientist stranded on a disintegrating iceberg and decides to redeem himself by raising a rag-tag, ill-prepared rescue crew *cue ominous music*. Masiel does a terrific job with his characterizations, especially of the colorful secondary characters (The Chemist, the Wolf, Buffy Errol) and of bringing a certain blue-collar arctic culture to life. If anything, the author is so knowledgeable and precise in his nautical terminology that during some of the storm sequences I was utterly lost at sea among the h-winches, drill booms and bulkheads. Still, it's a good yarn. After this, try the aforementioned Smilla by Peter Høeg!
Michael Seine (pronounced "sane"--coincidence?) leaves his wife each summer to work in the oil business up in the night-less, tree-less expanses of icy wasteland along the northern Alaskan coast. The pay is great, but when Seine's wife tires of his long absences and ultimately leaves him, he finds himself drawn back to the Arctic, perhaps for good. However, on the job he becomes an infamous "lightning rod of doom", haunted by the men who have died around him, even though Seine himself somehow manages to escape each mishap unscathed.
One day, while monitoring the 2182 Khz emergency channel, he intercepts a distress call from a scientist stranded on a disintegrating iceberg and decides to redeem himself by raising a rag-tag, ill-prepared rescue crew *cue ominous music*. Masiel does a terrific job with his characterizations, especially of the colorful secondary characters (The Chemist, the Wolf, Buffy Errol) and of bringing a certain blue-collar arctic culture to life. If anything, the author is so knowledgeable and precise in his nautical terminology that during some of the storm sequences I was utterly lost at sea among the h-winches, drill booms and bulkheads. Still, it's a good yarn. After this, try the aforementioned Smilla by Peter Høeg!
May 15, 2012
"An antidote for the precious"
Some folks become novelists for no reason whatsoever, besides "wanting to be a writer". Having done not much, and having not much insight, they fall back on the confessional and bathetic ("my dad drank" -- sorry darlin' that does not make you a writer, that makes you like pretty much everyone else on the planet)
David Masiel is the refreshing writer who's actually done something interesting, knows interesting people, and has a worthwhile story to tell . . . before he became a writer. He writes of Seattle and the Alaska maritime trade with real personal knowledge, detailed (occasionally too detailed) descriptions of bilge fluids and muck, drunken sailors and filth.
He has a story to tell, a really good one. Shades of Conrad ("Lord Jim" and "Nostromo") and also Poe ("MS found in a bottle"), its a true Northwest gothic, a story to kick that Tom Robbins snarkiness well beyond the state line.
Its a not a perfect novel . . . there's a bit of creakiness in technique, a bit of Martin Amis admiration that doesn't quite have Amis' fluency, but no matter.
You want to read about ghosts on the high seas, a tormented sailor (perhaps) redeemed by the love of a good women?
Put on your Fliegende hollander and pick up this one. An unusual and really worthwhile book, a first novel that's got a world of experience behind it.
Some folks become novelists for no reason whatsoever, besides "wanting to be a writer". Having done not much, and having not much insight, they fall back on the confessional and bathetic ("my dad drank" -- sorry darlin' that does not make you a writer, that makes you like pretty much everyone else on the planet)
David Masiel is the refreshing writer who's actually done something interesting, knows interesting people, and has a worthwhile story to tell . . . before he became a writer. He writes of Seattle and the Alaska maritime trade with real personal knowledge, detailed (occasionally too detailed) descriptions of bilge fluids and muck, drunken sailors and filth.
He has a story to tell, a really good one. Shades of Conrad ("Lord Jim" and "Nostromo") and also Poe ("MS found in a bottle"), its a true Northwest gothic, a story to kick that Tom Robbins snarkiness well beyond the state line.
Its a not a perfect novel . . . there's a bit of creakiness in technique, a bit of Martin Amis admiration that doesn't quite have Amis' fluency, but no matter.
You want to read about ghosts on the high seas, a tormented sailor (perhaps) redeemed by the love of a good women?
Put on your Fliegende hollander and pick up this one. An unusual and really worthwhile book, a first novel that's got a world of experience behind it.
February 13, 2008
I knew I should have put this one down but I didn't.
Not very descriptive when I needed it to be, to descriptive when I could have cared less. It took two thirds of the book until I realized that I was pronouncing the main characters name wrong, and I think it was only because the author wanted to make it clear about page 200. it was a bunch of crap if you ask me. ruined my reading rhythm cause every time I got to his name I would read it the way I thought, then do a double take and read it the way he intended.
The worse thing about it is that no matter what his name was, he wasn't very sympathetic, or is it empathetic? either way, he was a bit of a baby.... and he had to go through some tough stuff throughout the course of the book! by the end I was ready to throw the book out window.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has worked on long liners, on ice crushers or giant tug boats at or near the Arctic circle. Everyone else, hope you like it better than I did.
Not very descriptive when I needed it to be, to descriptive when I could have cared less. It took two thirds of the book until I realized that I was pronouncing the main characters name wrong, and I think it was only because the author wanted to make it clear about page 200. it was a bunch of crap if you ask me. ruined my reading rhythm cause every time I got to his name I would read it the way I thought, then do a double take and read it the way he intended.
The worse thing about it is that no matter what his name was, he wasn't very sympathetic, or is it empathetic? either way, he was a bit of a baby.... and he had to go through some tough stuff throughout the course of the book! by the end I was ready to throw the book out window.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has worked on long liners, on ice crushers or giant tug boats at or near the Arctic circle. Everyone else, hope you like it better than I did.
December 10, 2016
There is quite a bit of swearing and nasty language in this story. However, since the plot concerns tough men doing a rough job in an unforgiving climate, most of it seems warranted. The lone female crew member is talked about by her coworkers in an unflattering way, but she manages to hold her own in the male dominated world in this arctic seascape. All the characters seem drawn to life in this harsh environment and do not appear to be suited to a more sedate life.
When the job they are doing winds up a few of them decide to commandeer a ship to try to rescue a man stranded on an ice floe somewhere out in the vast, cold ocean. While on their perilous journey the crew find out some of what forged their cohort's and their own personalities.
When the job they are doing winds up a few of them decide to commandeer a ship to try to rescue a man stranded on an ice floe somewhere out in the vast, cold ocean. While on their perilous journey the crew find out some of what forged their cohort's and their own personalities.
August 11, 2012
Now this is a novel you can sink your teeth into. It’s got everything. Action, adventure, a love story, and almost everyone dies. It takes place in the Arctic where barges, tugboats, and oil rigs work despite Mother Nature. This kind of work attracts a rough group of people, and they make for very entertaining characters. If I recall correctly, there are three parts, so there are three major adventure stories. This book gets compared to The Perfect Storm and I say this is possibly the better of the two.
June 10, 2009
Well...every so often I like to attempt to read a novel of intrigue. Typically I have to be a stickler about what I choose as the language of law firms or doctors offices leave me not caring about the novel. So, I chose to read about intrigue on boats and rigs up in the northern hemisphere.
Here is what I will say, "This novel would be really intense if I knew boating terminology."
Most of the time I was lost.
Here is what I will say, "This novel would be really intense if I knew boating terminology."
Most of the time I was lost.
February 12, 2014
An insane romp through the arctic this was the perfect book to read as I moved from Florida back to frozen New York. All the characters are drawn to arctic voyages by the purpose and excitement they get from a dangerous mission and pretend it's just for the money. It reads like a movie and is over quickly. My only critisism is that the author doesn't linger on the truly climactic scenes, giving the moments he's been building up to only a sentence and then they're over.
February 5, 2008
Not a feel-good book, but a very engaging one. If you ever wonder where your oil comes from, or your crab legs, it's very unique people surviving in the Bering Sea.
It's hard on mind and spirit, and this book drags you through the surreal reality of it all.
Good stuff, and not as unreal as you might think.
ay
It's hard on mind and spirit, and this book drags you through the surreal reality of it all.
Good stuff, and not as unreal as you might think.
ay
April 29, 2008
Terrifying, awesome beginning. I kind of lost it toward the end, but a fine sad story of extreme climate and extreme people.
March 1, 2009
First novel about hard luck people working for Exxon in extreme Arctic conditions. Realism, adventure, and suspense.
December 4, 2014
If you can get past the first 100 pages of the book which are deathly boring, the rest of it is quite good and a great ending.
June 14, 2010
Excellent book about dangerous working conditions in Alaska and the Bering Sea.
April 24, 2014
It was depressing as hell.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews