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SEBASTIAN JUNGER
The Perfect Storm
A True Story of Man Against the Sea
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Fourth Estate Limited
Copyright © Sebastian Junger 1997
PS Section © Harper Perennial 2006, except ‘Watching the Storm’ by Lucy Miller © Express 2000
PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Sebastian Junger asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007230068
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 9780007324385 Version: 2017-08-22
‘If one knows anything at all about the sea, one feels the enormous strengths of the hurricane winds and the incredibly towering mass of the hundred-foot waves’
PATRICK O’BRIAN
‘Sebastian Jungers compassionate, intelligent voice instructs us effortlessly on the sea life of the swordfisherman, the physics of a sinking steel ship, and the details of death by drowning. It is a terrifying read’
DAVA SOBEL
‘Junger moves seamlessly between the wrenching human dramas and the awesome details of the storm. The Perfect Storm is terrifying, sad, exhilarating, humbling and unforgettable’
Daily Mail
‘Junger has found a language to match the stature of the sea at its worst, and to capture its mysteries … it’s a chilling account that registers 12 on the Beaufort Scale’
Sunday Times
‘A magnificent sea yarn … but a true story and all the more compelling for hat’
Observer
‘Cuts every facet of raw material to flashing brilliance … It amounts to a Homeric epic in its control of overwhelming natural forces and the grim demands they make of human life and effort’
Scotland on Sunday
‘The closest you will come to drowning at sea without actually having to do so’
The Times
‘Sometimes a story comes along that’s almost too good to be believable. The Perfect Storm may read like a novel but it isn’t one. It’s chillingly true … more fabulous than fiction, it will become a classic for a jaded modern world’
Independent
‘Masterly, an essay in fear … He writes like a poet who has been to meteorology school’
RUTH RENDELL, Daily Telegraph
‘Reading The Perfect Storm is like trawling back through every watery dream, and nightmare, you have ever had. It confirms your wildest hopes of quiet heroism as well as your greatest fears’
Independent
Puts the reader in the eye of the storm and into the hearts and minds of all those whose lives were lost or hearts seared by the disaster … the result is total authenticity and perhaps the best writing since Moby Dick on the awesome power, terror and grandeur of the sea and on the character of the people who confront it’
Lloyds List
’ tour de force of descriptive writing … simultaneously thrilling and sobering’
Financial Times
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO MY FATHER, WHO
FIRST INTRODUCED ME
TO THE SEA.
CONTENTS