Jessica DuLong - All Available Boats!

Praise for My River Chronicles: Rediscovering the Work that Built America

[DuLong] delivers an engaging narrative of maritime history and her own hands-on perceptions

The New York Times,

An unexpected portrayal of America in the decline of industry, delivered from the unique vantage point of the Hudson River.... an eye-opening picture of what America has been... and what it is becoming... Powerful.

Kirkus, starred review

She details her often exhilarating experiences in her very fine and gutsy book. Ms. DuLong is a confident and sensual writer, as perceptive about small matters on a boat as was Anthony Bourdain, in Kitchen Confidential, about everyday events in a professional kitchen.

The New York Times, ArtsBeat blog

Smart, captivating prose... [Readers] will love this unusual mix of history, adventure, feminism, and blue-collar know-how. Highly recommended.

Library Journal

Jessica DuLongs elegantly written My River Chronicles... carries forward the craft of literary non-fiction with grace and energy.

Gay Talese, A Writers Life

In rich and captivating prose, Jessica DuLong kindly invites the rest of us on the journey of her lifetime: from a dot-com job to the fabled waters of the Hudson River, where she became a fireboat engineer. This is an unusual and fascinating book.

Jon Meacham, American Lion

When Jessica DuLong describes her work in the engine room of the John J. Harvey, you can practically feel the throb of the boats mighty diesels. This is someone who has paid some dues, and it shows in the details. Her view through a narrow portal at the water line opens into a bigger picture of the Hudson River, the economy of New York, and the dignity of workthe kind of work that is genuinely useful. My River Chronicles is an account of what made this country thrive, and might yet again: men and women who arent content to stand around with their hands in their pockets. The book reeks of penetrating oil, which may be just what is needed to get our economy, and our culture, moving again.

Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft

Jessica DuLong is a lucky woman. She stumbled into an obscure worldthe overheated engine room of an old fireboatand discovered that she belonged there. Readers are lucky, too, because she has managed to translate her love affair with the water into a finely written and fascinating story about a lost American way of life.

Stefan Fatsis, Word Freak

In a world where we are growing increasingly disconnected from anything real, what a delight to enter the engine room with Jessica DuLong, a real person doing a real thing in a real place. This is the kind of river trip that memoirs were developed for in the first place.

Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock

As both a writer and an engineer, [DuLong is] relentlessly, gratifyingly curious, and her fine, richly detailed prose holds an appeal regardless of your level of interest in heritage histories and engine mechanics.... DuLongs passion for her craft is contagious, making My River Chronicles one of the most moving, unusual books Ive read in a long time.

Bookslut

To my parents, Peter and Gretchen,
whose lessons about language and goodness charted my course

To Ben, Zillin, and Jude,
for buoying me with love and light

Copyright 2017 by Jessica DuLong. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-180498-1
MHID: 0-07-180498-6

The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-180499-8, MHID: 0-07-180499-4.

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Dust to Deliverance: Untold Stories from the Maritime Evacuation on September 11 has been funded in part by Furthermore grants in publishing, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund.

Photos used with permission of the New York City Police Department 2001.

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