I don't believe I've read a better account of what it feels like to work on the waterfront, especially in the fish plants, than Mark's. His description of his father Ted Williams is superb. In fact, the entire narrative about one's initiation into the culture of "working on fish" is wonderful.    - Peter Anastas, Broken Trip and No Fortunes

...a masculine story, but one a woman can enjoy. The strength of his prose and his storytelling "ooze testosterone." This book is about the culture of [Gloucester] that has existed for hundreds of years.  - Jane Daniel, publisher of Gigolos

 

Working alone on a September afternoon, Gloucester, Massachusetts fisherman Mark Williams was setting back lobster pots aboard his boat f/v Black Sheep, five miles off of Good Harbor Beach where he grew up. Suddenly a trawl line cinched around his leg and within seconds he was being dragged overboard to a sure death twenty fathoms below. As he clung desperately to the stern of the Black Sheep his life literally passed before his eyes.

In those pain-filled terrifying minutes he recalled his boyhood, growing up on Good Harbor Beach, the son of one-time professional football player Ted Williams, and the lessons his father taught him that would save his life. Williams lived to record the memories that filled those minutes - from a boyhood working for his father in a fish-packing plant on the Gloucester waterfront to his own career lobster-fishing alone in the North Atlantic.

F/V Black Sheep is the story of that afternoon and the memories that came rushing back. Williams takes us from the violent world of the Gloucester waterfront where he once spent a summer shooting rats for the owner of Empire Fish Company through brawls with vicious men, encounters with enticing women, and the omnipresent dangers of a life lived working on the ocean. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes breath-taking, always entertaining (including a humorous recollection of an evening spent drinking with "Sully" who was to die aboard the Andrea Gail shortly afterwards) the stories that comprise F/V Black Sheep build to a heart-stopping conclusion as Williams is dragged overboard, descends to the bottom of the ocean, and a rescue so remarkable it took him years to acknowledge it. We invite you to preview samples from this book..

The Black Sheep passes the Endeavor on her way out of Gloucester Harbor
Our Lady of Good Voyage keeps watch.

HOME | THE OLD MERMAID'S TALE | MY LAST ROMANCE | PARLEZ-MOI BLOG | F/V BLACK SHEEP BLOG | LINKS