The Lost Boys of Montauk
The True Story of the Wind Blown, Four Men Who Vanished at Sea, and the Survivors They Left Behind
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An immersive account of a tragedy at sea whose repercussions haunt its survivors to this day, lauded by New York Times bestselling author Ron Suskind as “an honest and touching book, and a hell of a story.”
In March of 1984, the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown left Montauk Harbor on what should have been a routine offshore voyage. Its captain, a married father of three young boys, was the boat’s owner and leader of the four-man crew, which included two locals and the blue-blooded son of a well-to-do summer family. After a week at sea, the weather suddenly turned, and the foursome collided with a nor’easter. They soon found themselves in the fight of their lives. Tragically, it was a fight they lost. Neither the boat nor the bodies of the men were ever recovered. The downing of the Wind Blown has since become interwoven with the local folklore of the East End’s year-round population. Its tragic fate will never be forgotten.
In this “riveting man-vs.-nature story and compelling tribute to those who perished” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), journalist Amanda M. Fairbanks seeks out the reasons why an event more than three decades old remains so startlingly vivid in people’s minds. She explores the ways in which deep, lasting grief can alter people’s memories. And she shines a light on the powerful and sometimes painful dynamics between fathers and sons, as well as the secrets that can haunt families from beyond the grave.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Fairbanks debuts with a deeply reported and moving account of how a tragedy has affected a Long Island fishing community. In March 1984, the four-man commercial fishing boat Wind Blown disappeared in a nor'easter between Montauk Point and Block Island. Fairbanks sketches how Montauk and other Long Island villages became playgrounds for wealthy New Yorkers who spent summers there, and shows that by the 1980s, soaring property rates pushed commercial fishermen to go farther out to sea in pursuit of more profitable catches. She notes that commercial fishing has "a fatality rate twenty-nine times higher than the average for all other occupations," and describes the psychological toll on local families through in-depth interviews with relatives and friends of the Wind Blown's crew members, whose bodies have never been recovered. She notes that all four men had troubled relationships with their fathers, and unearths a family secret that compounded the grief of captain Mike Stedman's wife and three sons after his death. Fairbanks skillfully folds the socioeconomic issues into her narrative, and brings her subjects, especially Stedman's widow, Mary, to vivid life. The result is a memorable portrait of loss.
