Dean Adams
Come meet the author!
Join us for the book launch, a special event with many great surprises:
Sunday, October 7, at
1 p.m. at
Seattle Public Library, with
Captain's Nautical Supply - Friday, October 12, at 7 p.m. at Village Books
- Sunday, October 14, at 3 p.m. at Wordstock, Portland
- Friday, November 2, at 7 p.m. at University Book Store
- Wednesday, November 7, at 6 p.m. at Third Place Books
- Monday, November 5, at 6 p.m. at Tumwater Library
- Tuesday, November 27, at 3 p.m. at Pacific Marine Expo
As Four Thousand Hooks opens, an Alaskan fishing schooner is sinking. It is the summer of 1972, and the sixteen-year-old narrator is at the helm. Backtracking from the gripping prologue, Dean Adams tells how he came to be a crew member on the Grant and unfolds a tale of adventure that reads like a novel - with drama, conflict, and resonant portrayals of halibut fishing, his ragtag shipmates, maritime Alaska, and the ambiguities of family life.
At sea, the
Grant's crew teach Dean the daily tasks of baiting thousands of longline hooks and handling the catch, and on shore they lead him through the seedy bars and guilty pleasures of Kodiak. Exhausted by twenty-hour workdays and awed by the ocean's raw power, he observes examples of human courage and vulnerability and emerges with a deeper knowledge of himself and the world.
Four Thousand Hooks is both an absorbing adventure tale and a rich story about a way of life and work that has sustained Northwest families for generations. This coming of age story will appeal to readers-including young adults-interested in ocean adventures, commercial fishing, maritime life, and the Northwest Coast.
PRAISE FOR FOUR THOUSAND HOOKS
"I relived my own past reading
Four Thousand Hooks. The way Adams described seeing things for the first time through the eyes of a greenhorn crew member -- the sights and smells, what it's like to really feel work and exhaustion, being on your own as a young man in Alaska -- brought back memories I didn't know I had."
-Sig Hansen, Captain of the
Northwestern as seen on
Deadliest Catch "Gritty but literate, this book has the slap-dash of real boat experience.
Four Thousand Hooks never loses its salt. It's about an 'inbreaker' ready to take it all as it comes-fish slime, full hold, and hopefully a payday."
-William McCloskey, author of
Highliners "Adams tells of the drunken shore leave, the surprising gentleness and understanding between crew members, and the rough but careful teaching of any new crew member to be part of a team upon which one sometimes had to depend for one's survival."
-Margaret Willson, author of
Dance Lest We All Fall Down 
