Fisherman's Wife

IN THIS POIGNANT STORY, the failing economy of 1931 forces a successful young couple to give up their cosmopolitan New York City lifestyle for a simple life at the edge of the sea. For Jo, the “fisherman’s wife,” the relocation turns out to be more than she bargained for. She had been a globe-trotting writer and researcher for one of the legendary reporters of the 20th century. Soon pregnant, she and her husband struggle to make a home and live frugally. He tries to meet expenses as a commercial fisherman, while she is alone in their house on a winter beach, enduring the nausea of pregnancy and worrying about her spouse at sea. She misses the encounters with power and wealth her career brought her, the comforts and security of their lives before storms and struggle became the norm.

Yet, they find true happiness. First published during the Great Depression, this timeless story reveals how sacrifice, hardship and trust can create a common bond of love; how there is a deep sense of fulfillment in working together and discovering that, as the author writes “...something much finer was welded between us than we found in the first prosperous days of our marriage.”

Beautifully illustrated with traditional woodcuts by contemporary printmaker Julie Goldstein, the story includes an epilogue by New Jersey shore history author Margaret Thomas Buchholz.

56 pages

Down the Shore Publishing