Novel set in the Northern Pacific Ocean – Alaska

1st February 2019

Woman at Sea by Catherine Poulain, novel set in the Northern Pacific Ocean – Alaska. Translated by Adriana Hunter.

Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2019 (Fiction, with a sense of place)

This is fiction that reads like a memoir. Lili has arrived in Alaska, looking for work on the fishing trawlers that set out into the oftentimes roiling seas of the Northern Pacific Ocean. She is clearly running away from something in France. She is a diminutive sparrow-like woman. She goes in search of a boat, without the necessary papers and permits and dismisses the seilers in favour of a longliner, the “Rebel”. This is to become her raison d’être over the coming months.

She seems to want to push herself to the edge, where of course there is the risk that she may never return. She actively seeks out the big, brawny sailors against whom she can pit herself, and throws herself into the hard life of a fisherman. She almost dies through blood poisoning and frequently lacerates her hands on the lines and equipment. The weather is so often inclement and sailors have to pinion themselves to their crafts whilst the seas roar over them, drowning them in icy water and brisk lashing winds.

Gutting the fish, still half alive, leaves all the fishing folk smeared in blood and guts. Lili in her raw state chooses to eat the palpitating hearts of the halibut and the roe of dead fish to satiate her gnawing hunger. Sleep is at a premium and food is whatever is on offer.

The prose is described as muscular and taut and I was curious to discover what that actually meant. The writing indeed does have an incredible, visceral immediacy that enables the reader to dive into the scenes of human toil as they heave the heavy bodies on board and start the slicing and disembowelling.

Lili herself is a mystery. When she is involved in repartee she is often monosyllabic, mumbling her responses. The sense of her as a person is very muted but that she can only feel alive when on the edge is the leitmotif of the novel. She refers to herself as a girl-child, who favours ice cream and popcorn over other food. She seeks out the childlike attachment of the towering men on her boat and is devastated when the ending comes and they don’t make their good byes. She clearly needs to martyr herself to the cause, risking life and limb as she morbidly revels in life on the edge. She is indeed a curiosity and really struggles with human relationships (there are indicators that she may perhaps be on the autistic spectrum).

She has an ultimate desire to go to Point Barrow, which she reiterates like a mantra to anyone who asks, it is the end of her world; and she almost ends up in Hawaii with one of her fishing fraternity, her Great Sailor.

Quite why Lili has the need to experience life on the edge and face death on several occasions is unclear. She seems to need to know she is alive, she is at times driven beyond the point of reason. The forthright writing – based on the author’s own peripatetic experiences – is what makes this an engrossing and at times shocking novel. It really opened my eyes to fishing life on the high seas!

The translation is very strong, credit to Adriana Hunter.

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