Reviews
"His first-hand accounts come alive on the pages, where the reader is swept into the story with the narrator. . . . The foreshadowing and timing of the story makes it difficult to stop . . ."- Christy Olsen Field , Norwegian American Weekly , October 2012, "A real-life account of a young man's first season working as a crew member on his uncle's commercial fishing boat in the 1970s. Adams tells of the drunken shore leave, the surprising gentleness and understanding between crew members, and the rough but careful teaching of any new crew member to be part of a team upon which one sometimes had to depend for one's survival." Margaret Willson, author of Dance Lest We All Fall Down: Breaking the Cycles of Poverty in Brazil and Beyond"I relived my own past reading Four Thousand Hooks. The way Adam's described seeing things for the first time through the eyes of a greenhorn crew member the sights and smells, what it's like to really feel work and exhaustion, being on your own as a young man in Alaska-brought back memories I didn't know I had." Sig Hansen, Captain of the Northwestern as seen on Deadliest Catch, "The well-honed prose tells a good story and one is encouraged to turn the pages to see what happens next. This is not only a very readable book but an important record of a particular type of fishing." - Arthur G. Credland , Mariners Mirror, " Four Thousand Hooks says a lot about our ability to meet extraordinary challenges, and suggests that maybe we're all stronger and more capable than we realize. [It's] filled with fascinating details of the fishing life, makes for awfully good reading." - National Fisherman, "I relived my own past reading Four Thousand Hooks . The way Adam's described seeing things for the first time through the eyes of a greenhorn crew member--the sights and smells, what it's like to really feel work and exhaustion, being on your own as a young man in Alaska--brought back memories I didn't know I had." -Sig Hansen , Captain of the Northwestern, as seen on Deadliest Catch, "Gritty but literate, this book has the slap-dash of real boat experience. Four Thousand Hooks never loses its salt. It's about an 'inbreaker' ready to take it all as it comes--fish slime, full hold, and hopefully a payday." -William McCloskey , author of Highliners, " Four Thousand Hooks is a marvellous loss-of-innocence book, informative, enjoyable and well worth reading." - Irene Wanner , Seattle Times , November 2012, "'Hooks' has the feel of an honest memoir, valuable for its precision in describing fishing methods, crew interactions, and what Adams thought and felt . . ." - Scott Bowlen , Ketchikan Daily News, "This is pure adventure. Dean's story is . . . sinewy and spare, understated and often gorgeously written."- Ethan Gilsdorf , Boston Globe , October 2012
