Four Thousand Hooks

A True Story of Fishing and Coming of Age on the High Seas of Alaska

By: Dean J. Adams

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

As Four Thousand Hooks opens, an Alaskan fishing schooner is sinking. It is the summer of 1972, and the sixteen-year-old narrator is at the helm. Backtracking from the gripping prologue, Dean Adams describes how he came to be a crew member on the Grant and weaves a tale of adventure that is like a novel—with drama, conflict, and resonant portrayals of halibut fishing, his ragtag shipmates, maritime Alaska, and the ambiguities of family life.

At sea, the Grant's crew teach Dean the daily tasks of baiting thousands of longline hooks and handling the catch, and on shore they lead him through the seedy bars and guilty pleasures of Kodiak. Exhausted by twenty-hour workdays and awed by the ocean's raw power, he observes examples of human courage and vulnerability and emerges with a deeper knowledge of himself and the world.

Four Thousand Hooks is both an absorbing adventure story and a rich ethnography of a way of life and work that has sustained Northwest families for generations. This coming of age story will appeal to listeners including young adults and anyone interested in ocean adventures, commercial fishing, maritime life, and the Northwest coast.

©2012 The University of Washington Press (P)2025 Tantor Media

The real life of the fishermen.

This book was one of the easiest books I have listened to. The voice of the narrator was very pleasing, and his emphasis and enthusiasm came through. I’m totally amazed by the story that Dean has shared, about himself as well as about the Grant and the men who were on it.Thoroughly enjoyable