“Cathie Pelletier anatomizes this two-day tempest in
Northeaster, a historical re-creation of personal experiences so dramatic that they have lingered for decades in local and family lore. It’s touching to see the faces of real people who went through the ordeal.”
—
The Wall Street Journal"
Northeaster is a meticulously researched, compassionate, and all too real account of the interface between megastorm and human civilization, a tragedy that is too often reduced to numbers and statistics. Set in America's last frontierland, the state of Maine, Cathie Pelletier cracks open the door to victims's lives before the storm and the immeasurable loss they suffered after it."
— Porter Fox, author of
“In this excellent example of narrative nonfiction, Pelletier follows several families, many of whom experienced tragedy or hardship during the storm. Pelletier also delves into the physical destruction that the storm left in its wake and the science of blizzards. This book will appeal to readers of narrative nonfiction and climate nonfiction in particular.”
—
Booklist"Northeaster is an amazing piece of work, giving us a riveting story. The storm is the framework, but the picture it holds is of the characters themselves, how they lived their lives, how they faced adversity. Incredibly, not only can this scenario happen again. One day it will."
— Bernd Heinrich, author of Ravens in Winter and The Snoring Bird
"If there’s a snowier book than
Northeaster, I don’t know it. With its rich cast of fishermen, woodsmen, millworkers and plain old small-town Mainers, Cathie Pelletier’s dramatic re-creation of the great blizzard of ‘52 isn’t simply a fast-paced disaster narrative about the workings of fate, but a paean to a long-lost way of life."
— Stewart O’Nan, author of The Circus Fire
