THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A brilliant, soulful, and timely portrait of a two-hundred-year-old crabbing community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay as it faces extinction. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post, NPR, Outside, Smithsonian, Bloomberg, Science Friday, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Review of Books, and Kirkus “BEAUTIFUL, HAUNTING AND TRUE.” — Hampton Sides • “GORGEOUS. A … Smithsonian, Bloomberg, Science Friday, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Review of Books, and Kirkus
“BEAUTIFUL, HAUNTING AND TRUE.” — Hampton Sides • “GORGEOUS. A TRULY REMARKABLE BOOK.” — Beth Macy • “GRIPPING. FANTASTIC.” — Outside • “CAPTIVATING.” — Washington Post • “POWERFUL.” — Bill McKibben • “VIVID. HARROWING AND MOVING.” — Science • “A MASTERFUL NARRATIVE.” — Christian Science Monitor • “THE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR.” — Stephen L. Carter/Bloomberg
Tangier Island, Virginia, is a community unique on the American landscape. Mapped by John Smith in 1608, settled during the American Revolution, the tiny sliver of mud is home to 470 hardy people who live an isolated and challenging existence, with one foot in the 21st century and another in times long passed. They are separated from their countrymen by the nation’s largest estuary, and a twelve-mile boat trip across often tempestuous water—the same water that for generations has made Tangier’s fleet of small fishing boats a chief source for the rightly prized Chesapeake Bay blue crab, and has lent the island its claim to fame as the softshell crab capital of the world.
Yet for all of its long history, and despite its tenacity, Tangier is disappearing. The very water that has long sustained it is erasing the island day by day, wave by wave. It has lost two-thirds of its land since 1850, and still its shoreline retreats by fifteen feet a year—meaning this storied place will likely succumb first among U.S. towns to the effects of climate change. Experts reckon that, barring heroic intervention by the federal government, islanders could be forced to abandon their home within twenty-five years. Meanwhile, the graves of their forebears are being sprung open by encroaching tides, and the conservative and deeply religious Tangiermen ponder the end times.
Chesapeake Requiem is an intimate look at the island’s past, present and tenuous future, by an acclaimed journalist who spent much of the past two years living among Tangier’s people, crabbing and oystering with its watermen, and observing its long traditions and odd ways. What emerges is the poignant tale of a world that has, quite nearly, gone by—and a leading-edge report on the coming fate of countless coastal communities.
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Earl Swift has long shown a talent for locating the big and poignant stories that lay hidden in plain sight within the day-to-day lives of unsung Americans. With Chesapeake Requiem, his gift is on fine display. Here is a big story about a small place, a canary-in-the-coalmine tale that’s sad and beautiful, haunting and true.
This is a powerful book. Fascinating people, clinging loyally to a fascinating and lovely place, even as the waters rise — Earl Swift’s Chesapeake Requiem is a tale of our time, movingly told. Perhaps it will inspire some of us living safe on higher ground to more action on behalf of those at risk.
I have been to Tangier Island and to lose it and the way of life there is a historical
tragedy. I found it a fascinating place, a huge step back in time. I think this is an important book for as many people as possible to read.
Deeply moving… Gorgeous… A truly remarkable book.
Excellent book on a vanishing way of life. The watermen of Tangier may well be the first victims of climate change unless the various governments get their act together and do something to protect Virginia’s remaining Chesapeake Bay isle from the Bay itself. The author immerses himself in the life of the island and a closed society opens up to him.
Great insight into a community that has made its living on the water for centuries, and how change is not easy for entrenched cultures.
Very informative and documentary about the disappearance of a Crab fishing heritage island in the Chesapeake.
Sad to see what we are losing.
Chesapeake Requiem may well be the most powerful, provocative book I read all year. Ear Swift spent a year on tiny Tangier Island, deep in the Chesapeake Bay, living amongst the few hundred residents who call it home. These hardy individuals, whose numbers are dwindling by the year, primarily make their living off the water and nearly all of them can trace their lineage back to the pre-Revolutionary settlers.
Swift captures the spirit of Tangier, which is rife with contradictions, so eloquently that I practically felt I was there next to him. As the title says, Tangier Island is slowly disappearing. Never mind that the stages of disappearance can be traced to at least 1850; the bottom line is that the island likely has but a handful of years left. Like many rural places, though, the demographics are also working against the continuation of Tangier and the way of life there. As Swift notes, the end of Tangier will likely come down to a race between climate change and demographics.
As for that climate change bit: the population of Tangier Island is skeptical, and that’s putting it mildly. They do agree that their island is disappearing, and they’re desperate to save it, but they believe the culprit is “erosion” and not “rising sea levels” and I’ll leave it to the reader to split those hairs – although Swift does a fine job of both providing the scientific background and the Tangier perspective. The federal government has been concerned about the rapid disappearance of the island as well, primarily for the migratory bird habitat it provides, and has “studied” the issue on and off for the past 20 years.
Like much of Rural America, Tangier Island was and remains Trump Country. While this may seem one contradiction too many, by the time Swift had enumerated all of the various studies and the studies of the studies and so on, I was sympathetic to the notion of wanting someone who promised to slash red tape. And build walls. Tangiermen really, really, really want a seawall, and their mayor has even gone on the record as saying maybe Washington should just build them a sea wall if the folks in the Southwest don’t want one. Desperate times call for desperate arguments.
It would be easy enough for Swift to have created caricatures; presumably most of his readers won’t have visited Tangier, nor perhaps have firsthand experience with many from the tiny towns that dot this country. Why not confirm the stereotypes? Yet, Swift has done a commendable job of presenting a holistic portrait of the men and women who call Tangier home. Time and again I was struck by how hard they work and how hard life is. Up and at ’em closer to midnight than daylight, as Swift observes, and not just occasionally, but every. single. day., the men work the water until either it claims them (not too uncommon, unfortunately – remember, commercial fishing is the most dangerous occupation in America) or until they physically can do it no longer.
Lest the reader have their own ideas about when that might be, Swift provides a sketch of two hale watermen working their boat in high seas, on a day when he can barely remain upright. One of the two is 81 and the other recently celebrated his 86th birthday. Crabbing is not for the faint of heart. In his year on the island, Swift witnesses heartbreaking tragedy, as well as the reaction of the town to that tragedy, which can largely be summarized as doubling down on hard work, faith, and taking care of their own.
Ah, faith. The municipal water town is painted with a cross, and I’m sure you’ve already guessed there’s no shortage of prayer in the school. (That would be the K-12 school, enrollment 58, where the class of 2016 was uncommonly large for having 7 graduates.) There are two churches, though, and if attendance isn’t mandated, the blue laws restricting Sunday commerce as well as the dry laws restricting any alcohol sales on-island are.
By the end of Chesapeake Requiem, I felt I actually knew some of the individuals, and wanted to know them better. I would say I’ve added Tangier to my bucket list, for the just-caught crab cakes and crab hush puppies if nothing else, but I recognize I’m unlike to make it there before it – or its denizens – disappears. At its heart, this is a book that asks its readers to think about the myriad people and cultures that comprise this country, the ways in which we fit together, and how we value one another, our beliefs, and our land. For these reasons, Chesapeake Requiem should be required reading for anyone who lives in this country or wants to understand it better.
I’d give it six stars if I could.
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2018/09/chesapeake-requiem-year-with-watermen_7.html)
Anyone interested in the Chesapeake Bay and eating steamed crabs should read this book. The life of those living on Tangier Island is amazing and one has to wonder why anyone would choose to live there. I suppose I’m too accustomed to my comforts !