Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island

Product Description

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
A brilliant, soulful, and timely portrait of a two-hundred-year-old crabbing community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay as it faces extinction.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post, NPR, Outside, Smithsonian, Bloomberg, Science Friday, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Review of Books, and Kirkus 
“BEAUTIFUL, HAUNTING AND TRUE.” — Hampton Sides •  “GORGEOUS. A TRULY REMARKABLE BOOK.” — Beth Macy • “GRIPPING. FANTASTIC.” — Outside • “CAPTIVATING.” — Washington Post • “POWERFUL.” — Bill McKibben • “VIVID. HARROWING AND MOVING.” — Science • “A MASTERFUL NARRATIVE.” — Christian Science Monitor • “THE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR.”  — Stephen L. Carter/Bloomberg
Tangier Island, Virginia, is a community unique on the American landscape. Mapped by John Smith in 1608, settled during the American Revolution, the tiny sliver of mud is home to 470 hardy people who live an isolated and challenging existence, with one foot in the 21st century and another in times long passed. They are separated from their countrymen by the nation’s largest estuary, and a twelve-mile boat trip across often tempestuous water—the same water that for generations has made Tangier’s fleet of small fishing boats a chief source for the rightly prized Chesapeake Bay blue crab, and has lent the island its claim to fame as the softshell crab capital of the world.
Yet for all of its long history, and despite its tenacity, Tangier is disappearing. The very water that has long sustained it is erasing the island day by day, wave by wave. It has lost two-thirds of its land since 1850, and still its shoreline retreats by fifteen feet a year—meaning this storied place will likely succumb first among U.S. towns to the effects of climate change. Experts reckon that, barring heroic intervention by the federal government, islanders could be forced to abandon their home within twenty-five years. Meanwhile, the graves of their forebears are being sprung open by encroaching tides, and the conservative and deeply religious Tangiermen ponder the end times.   
Chesapeake Requiem is an intimate look at the island’s past, present and tenuous future, by an acclaimed journalist who spent much of the past two years living among Tangier’s people, crabbing and oystering with its watermen, and observing its long traditions and odd ways. What emerges is the poignant tale of a world that has, quite nearly, gone by—and a leading-edge report on the coming fate of countless coastal communities.

Review

“The best nonfiction book of 2018. … I can’t remember a book in recent years that taught me quite so much. Every page is vivid and rich. … A model for what serious reportage should be.” —
Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg

“[A] sweeping historical narrative. … Intimate, meticulously reported and captivating. … Earl Swift masterfully reveals Tangier as it is. … The definitive account of what once was and of what will soon be no more.” —
Washington Post (A Notable Book of the Year)

“Earl Swift has long shown a talent for locating the big and poignant stories that lay hidden in plain sight within the day-to-day lives of unsung Americans. With
Chesapeake Requiem, his gift is on fine display. Here is a big story about a small place, a canary-in-the-coalmine tale that’s sad and beautiful, haunting and true.” —
HAMPTON SIDES, New York Times bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice

“In a gripping, 400-page tome, Swift gracefully outlines the harsh inevitability of global warming and how the people on its front lines try to keep living their lives in its face. … Fantastic.” — Outside (A Best Book of the Year)

“A masterful narrative of place, people, and nature, supported by the best sort of on-the-ground journalism. … In
Chesapeake Requiem, Swift does what only the best environmental writers can do.” — Christian Science Monitor (A Best Book of the Year)

“America is about to learn what Virginians have known for decades—Earl Swift