The main narrative mystery of the story is trying to figure out what is happening with the fluctuating lobster population near the Cranberry Islands.
But Corson’s book is so good that in the end I found myself both entertained by the story and invested in discovering the hidden secrets of the lobster. Agent, Stuart Krichevsky.I have to admit, I wouldn’t have picked up The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson if it wasn’t one of the required books for my literary journalism class because the topic - lobsters and the people that love them - isn’t something I would normally read about. However, by the end of the book, the answer to the puzzle remains elusive. Corson provides more information about the lobster's unusual anatomy, eating habits and sex life than most readers will probably want to know, but he makes it all fascinating, especially when he juxtaposes observations of human behavior and descriptions of the social life of lobsters. He brings the story to life by concentrating on the lobstermen and their families who live in one Maine fishing community, Little Cranberry Island, and alternating narratives of their lives with accounts of the research of scientists who, obsessed with the curious life of lobsters, conduct experiments that are often as strange and complex as the lobsters themselves. In this intriguing and entertaining book, Corson, a journalist who has reported on such diverse subjects as organ transplants and Chinese sweatshops, brings together the often conflicting worlds of commercial lobstermen and marine scientists, showing how the two sides joined forces and tried for 15 years to solve the mystery of why the lobsters were disappearing. Lobstermen disagreed, contending that their longstanding practice of returning oversized lobsters to the sea as brood stock would take care of the problem.
Government scientists attributed the drop-off to overfishing and recommended raising the minimum legal size of lobsters that could be harvested. In the 1980s, the lobster population in the waters off the coast of Maine was declining, threatening disaster for the state's lobster fishing industry.
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