TO ORDER All titles may not be immediately available. . . . . . . . . . . . . RECENT REVIEWS: 6/13/97: The Good Brother By Chris Offutt Fiction 6/12/97: Making Waves By Mario Vargas Llosa Nonfiction 6/11/97: Bright Angel Time By Martha McPhee Fiction 6/10/97: Dreaming of Hitler By Daphne Merkin Nonfiction 6/09/97: Kowloon Tong The Collected Stories By Paul Theroux Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . SEARCH BOOK ARCHIVES BY: title of book author publisher reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . ALSO IN SALON: No more magic realism By Alberto Fuguet A young Latin American novelist says no more flying grannies. . . . . . . . . . . . . RECENT BOOK FEATURES

the perfect storm:a true story of men against the sea BY SEBASTIAN JUNGER NORTON 227 PAGES NONFICTION BY JONATHAN MILES in the last days of October 1991, vessels off the Newfoundland coast clashed with the kind of storm none of the crew had ever seen before -- 100-knot winds, waves as tall as seven-story buildings, rain so heavy and dense that the line between atmosphere and ocean was indistinguishable. At least one meteorologist, enamored with the statistical rarity of the mingling weather patterns, called it "the perfect storm." In the fishing villages along the New England coastline, it was called the Storm of the Century, a weather system worthy of depiction in the Book of Revelation. It was as brutal as sky and sea can be. Sebastian Junger, a freelance journalist who writes for Men's Journal and Outside, has chronicled the North Atlantic's October surprise in his first book, "The Perfect Storm." Primarily focusing on the crew of a single fishing vessel, the doomed Andrea Gail out of Gloucester, Mass., Junger weaves the story of the storm into the story of its victims -- a daunting task, since all that survived of the 72-foot boat were several fuel drums found bobbing in the sea south of Nova Scotia. In attempting to tell what he admits is "something that can never be fully known," Junger resorts to pastiche journalism, threading disparate sources and sciences into his narrative. There is history here, and sociology, a smattering of meteorology and even, in rare instances, faint touches of poetic detail ("There are houses in Gloucester where grooves have been worn into the floorboards by women pacing past an upstairs window, looking out to sea"). In lesser hands, this juggling act could easily fail. Junger is forced to describe the final hours of the Andrea Gail's crew through the recollections of a 19th century Scottish physician who survived a near drowning ("It's as close as one is going to get to the last moments of the Andrea Gail," he tells us), and he is often forced to withdraw from his narrative to explain the history of commercial fishing in the New World, say, or the precise mechanics of a hurricane. Yet the seams rarely show, and the pages turn fiercely. Exactly why they turn so fiercely is difficult to say. It is certainly, in part, due to Junger's skills. But it has also to do with our fascination with the excesses of the natural world -- with skies that can grow fists, and with seas that can suddenly become dark throats. Despite all mankind's advances against the perils of nature, we are still prey to a storm's maw, as helpless as a creature in the womb. Finishing this book, one is struck, almost with awe, by the power of nature to unfurl herself upon us with such abandon, and struck too by her cruel indifference, her eternal ability to betray those -- like the men aboard the Andrea Gail -- who love her best. June 16, 1997 Jonathan Miles lives in Oxford, Miss. His writing has appeared in Sports Afield and the New York Times Magazine. BOOKMARK: http://www.salonmagazine.com/sneaks/sneak.html