Newlyn is a coastal Cornish village of dramatic cliffs, crashing tides, and hardcore career fishermen, and Lamorna Ash was told that none of them would welcome her aboard. Weeks later, as the only female on the trawler Filadelfia, she heads out to sea with the dome of the sky above and the black waves below. Both a playwright and an anthropologist, Ash got to know the community on its own terms, lodging in a spare room and letting the village life wash over her. Her immersive portrait of Newlyn reveals these complex and difficult characters as they slowly open up to her about their lives and frustrations, first in the cramped space of the boat, then in the rough pubs ashore.

"I love this town and I love this book—both are imbued with the unadorned lessons of hard earned lives."—Mark Kurlansky