 
|
|
|
| Shopping Cart |
|---|
|
Tiggie: The Lure and Lore of Commercial Fishing in New England by Charles “Tiggie” Peluso & Sandy Macfarlane Format: 6 x 9 softcover ISBN: 978-1-60008-039-5 |
Book Description
Commercial fishing, which tops the list of the world’s most dangerous occupations, has long been a
magnet for writers and readers. The subject addresses a hunger of the spirit – for adventure, for conquest,
for solitude and for communion with the cosmos. “Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust
healthy soul in him,” Melville asks, “at some time or other crazy to go to sea?” Charles “Tiggie” Peluso and Sandy Macfarlane offer a convincing answer.
Tiggie: The Lure and Lore of Commercial Fishing in New England begins more than 30 years ago in a remote cove on Cape Cod’s Pleasant Bay, Macfarlane, a young marine biologist newly deputized by the Orleans shellfish warden, gathers up her courage to confront one of the Cape’s crustiest, crankiest commercial fishermen, a local legend named Tiggie Peluso. It’s more than a contest between youth and age, or rules and reason, or book knowledge and hard-earned practical experience. It’s a clash of two strong wills and two warring cultures – a bucolic, rustic Cape Cod that is in the process of changing beyond recognition, and an industry that is losing its past under a tsunami of foreign competition, legalisms and new technology.
In Tiggie we hear both their voices. Tiggie’s personal stories about fishing in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s are at
once poignant, matter-of-fact and haunting in his appreciation of the beauty around him, and reverence
for all life, especially in the sea. We meet his crew mates and friends, learn about their idiosyncrasies and
their humanness, their struggles to make ends meet, their financial binges in good times. We come to
understand their disdain for those who try to regulate what they do, their less-than-perfect relationships
with women and, above all, their love of the life they have chosen.
Sandy Macfarlane is the author of Rowing Forward, Looking Back, a chronicle of life in a small coastal community bombarded by development pressures. She and Tiggie, now both retired, met regularly at the local coffee shop over the past several years. Their breakfast conversations and Tiggie’s stories interweave past and present and the threads of their very different lives.
Tiggie is more than a memoir or a how-to book, but it combines the virtues of each. With detailed insights into the catching of fish and moving reflections on the beauty of the rituals, the surroundings, the characters, it captures the moments and the moods of a vanishing way of life.
Author Information
Sandy Macfarlane moved to Cape Cod after graduation from the University of Massachusetts, having spent summers there. She earned a Masters degree from Antioch New England Graduate School in resource management and administration. Sandy was the first municipal Shellfish Biologist in Massachusetts and was also the first Conservation Administrator in the town of Orleans. As a shellfish officer, she enforced shellfish regulations, often butting heads with commercial fishermen such as Tiggie. Her first book, Rowing Forward, Looking Back: Shellfish and the Tides of Change at the Elbow of Cape Cod, was highly praised for her ability to infuse “personality with science to demystify the complex biological processes that unfold in the marine environment.” She is past president of the New England Estuarine Research Society and member of the National Shellfisheries Association. Retired from the town, she founded Coastal Resource Specialists, a company dealing with shellfish issues. Her collaboration with Tiggie proved to be an ironic twist of fate.
Tiggie Peluso arrived on Cape Cod in 1946 after serving in the Army in World War II, to begin a career in commercial fishing. He became proficient in four separate types of fishing - longlining for cod, haddock and halibut; shellfishing for scallops, quahaugs and clams, rod and reel and flyfishing for striped bass; and fresh water fishing - an unusual achievement. He was a founding member and president of the Chatham Seafood Coop, the second largest fishermen’s cooperative in New England. After 25 years of fishing, he dictated stories of his experiences, which were transcribed. Forty years later, a chance coffee shop meeting with Sandy Macfarlane brought the stories to light. Sandy and Tiggie had shared shellfish experiences - on opposite sides of the law. With hatchets buried, the former shellfish officer-turnedauthor and the former commercial fisherman formed an unlikely collaboration.
|
This site best viewed with Internet Explorer 6+ or FireFox. Copyright 2006 Rooftop Publishing. All Rights Reserved. |
