Sex, Intrigue and the American Lobster

WHAT: The Secret Life of Lobsters WHERE: Book Store’s the World Over HOW MUCH: $13.95

Have you ever wondered, “Gee, I wonder how lobsters mate?” The thought never crossed my mind, but apparently I’m a member of an unimaginative minority. The nuts and bolts of lobster mating boggled generation after generation of pointy-headed scientists—and with good reason. Consider the basic facts: the female lobster has no vagina. The male has no penis. Then there’s that whole shell thing, the dynamics of making love in a swirling aquatic world with predators poised to pounced at a moment’s notice….Male lobsters face challenges no single man has ever dreamed of….and that’s just one of many mysteries surrounding this most tasty and beloved crustacean.

While lobster trivia may strike most readers as, well, fairly trivial, author Trevor Corson manages to make the subject riveting. He does so by weaving the biological story of lobsters with the story of the ups and downs of a small, close-knit fishing community off the coast of Maine. Part history lesson and a history of politics and government regulation. Part biology seminar, part lesson in intrige and part love story, The Secret Life of Lobsters engages and entertains from page one.

Much of the book’s success hinges on authenticity. Corson knows the subject backwards and forwards. In between founding literary journals and writing for the likes of the New York Times and Atlantic Monthly, Corson actually worked as one half of a two-man lobster crew. In fact, he worked two full seasons smothered in rancid fish entrails and snapping lobsters. The experience comes through in stunning, thoughtful details and authentic profiles of the fishermen, families and scientists whose world he inhabited.

When describing this book, it’s a challenge to find a close equivalent. My best shot: it’s like Randy Shilt’s And the Band Played On except no one dies of AIDS and you discover that lobsters are passionate, tender lovers (at least, when they’re not suffering from PMS or hatching complex Machiavellian power bids…which often end in dismemberment and cannibalism).

In short, I strongly recommend the book. True, it drags on a bit at the end—the editor should have chopped about 30 pages off the manuscript—but the vast majority of the book entertains and informs.